The Pediatric Teaching Hospital of El Cerro, which was once considered one of the best in its area in Cuba, is currently facing a serious crisis in its staff, after several doctors decided to resign due to terrible working conditions and low salaries. . Information about the situation at the health unit was revealed through a report by the independent Cuban portal 14ymedium.
The situation reflects the current collapse of the public health system that is currently affecting the Caribbean country, which has been the target of protests and complaints from patients and their families.
The El Cerro Teaching Pediatric Hospital, located in the capital of Cuba, Havana, is practically abandoned, as reported by the 14ymedium. According to a hospital employee and several residents of the region who spoke anonymously to the portal, several doctors who worked at the health unit had “enough” with the poor conditions in which they practiced their profession and left the place at the end of December 2023.
Everyone who decided to speak anonymously to the Cuban news portal pointed to the lack of resources, recognition and respect for the profession as the main reasons that led to the mass departure of professionals.
According to the 14ymedio, The doctors who worked at the hospital had previously complained that they did not have basic materials to care for their patients, that they did not receive a decent salary, that they suffered from pressure and hostility from the administration and that they were exposed to the risk of contagion and violence. Furthermore, many of them stated that they were having to work exhausting hours, without rest or incentives.
The Cuban portal published a study carried out in 2019 by a group of researchers who found that doctors at El Cerro hospital suffered from a high level of professional burnout, which manifested itself in symptoms of exhaustion and low productivity.
The study also showed the human side of the situation, pointing out that several doctors felt guilty and emotionally frustrated because of the difficulties they faced at work.
The El Cerro hospital crisis is not an isolated case within the precarious public health system on the communist island, which is experiencing its most serious economic crisis in decades. The shortage of medicines, unhealthy conditions, lack of equipment, as well as repression are some of the other problems currently affecting the quality and accessibility of Cuban medical services.
Patients themselves and their families are witnesses and victims of this reality. In November 2023, the portal 14ymedio reported that a group of mothers of Cuban children with serious or difficult-to-treat illnesses protested in front of the island's Ministry of Public Health, demanding better care for their children. Some were even arrested by the police of the Miguel Díaz-Canel regime, who tried to prevent the demonstration.
During the act, the women shouted slogans against communism and the Castro regime, blaming them for the situation of abandonment and helplessness they were experiencing.
“We don’t want any more communism, we want a solution,” they said.
In the midst of this crisis, the Cuban Conflict Observatory, a human rights organization, stated that the communist regime continues to exploit and “export” doctors to other countries.
According to an article published by the organization in November 2023, this practice has already become one of the main sources of income for the Díaz-Canel regime. The organization reported that, according to official data, since the 1960s, more than 400,000 Cuban health professionals have worked in 164 countries, with around 30,000 currently working in 66 countries. The organization notes that these doctors are not hired voluntarily and fairly, but rather are forced to accept working conditions that “violate their human and labor rights.”
As the NGO explained, several complaints and investigations indicate that Cuban doctors sent by the regime to work abroad receive only a small part of the salary that is paid by the contracting countries, while the rest remains in the hands of the island's communist regime. Furthermore, they are subjected to constant surveillance, which involves ideological control, isolation from their families and the high risk of reprisals if they decide to defect or report the situation. Many of them are also sent to dangerous or conflict-ridden areas, where they have no guarantee of safety or assistance.
According to data from the human rights organization Prisoners Defenders, there are currently around 5,000 Cuban doctors spread across dozens of countries who can no longer “see their children, wives or parents who still live on the island”. The organization claims that these doctors were banned from returning to Cuba after “abandoning” the communist regime's program to send doctors abroad.
Just as it affects doctors who live outside the Caribbean country, the repression of the Cuban communist regime also affects doctors who remained on the island, but who dared to denounce the failures and injustices of the local health system. According to information from the 14ymediopublished in November 2023, six doctors from the Hospital Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, located in the province of Granma, were tried and convicted of alleged negligence in the death of a young man injured in 2021. The doctors, however, claimed that they did not have the resources necessary to care for the patient, and who were victims of a political process designed to cover up the regime's responsibility in the Cuban health crisis.
Interviewed by the portal, Cuban urologist Aldo Luis Zamora Varona accused the Cuban regime of negligence and said that the State was “solely responsible” for the young man’s death, as the island’s health professionals work in precarious conditions “never seen in the poorest country in the world.”
Official data from 2022, published by Cuba's National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), pointed to a drastic reduction in the number of doctors on the island: from 312,406 in 2021 to 281,098 in 2022. This decline reflects resignations and emigration of professionals healthcare, highlighting their dissatisfaction with precarious working conditions and government policies.
According to information from the portal Diary of the Americasfrom 2021 to 2022 more than 30 thousand Cuban doctors resigned from their jobs or emigrated from the country.
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