A couple of weeks ago, the mayor of Medellín asked for international help against the coronavirus. Without giving more details about the requirements, he asked Cuba to send “medical personnel.”
Immediately the right protested. Former President Uribe trilled that “Cuba exploits doctors as a ‘white slave’ … This is how the takeover of Venezuela began.” Senator Cabal reiterated that local doctors have better training. Faced with such criticism, famous admirers of Cuba turned around. Ernesto Samper proclaimed that “millions nominate Cuban doctors for the Nobel Peace Prize for their heroism fighting against COVID-19.”
At the end of March, when the pandemic began, Piedad Córdoba expressed her amazement because “an island that has been seized, blocked and impoverished for 60 years (has) one of the best medicines in the world, one of the best health systems and exports doctors that they go around the world saving lives ”. In May, from Cuba, Gustavo Petro affirmed that he could help that country send a thousand of its doctors to attend to the crisis.
For such an optimistic view, a modicum of evidence is rarely offered. That is why the testimony of a classmate, a pathologist who has practiced in Chicago since the 1980s, was worth noting first-hand the quality of medical services he received after a traffic accident in Havana 8 years ago. I quote it verbatim.
After a strong blow against the pelvis and thigh that made him fly and hit the world, his wife was “lying motionless on her back, bleeding from the head. A rest of people gathered, a young police officer arrived and we asked him to call an ambulance. I have no authorization, he said. (A friend who was accompanying us) stopped a taxi and they put me in the front and (my wife) behind. By then I had bled profusely from the pelvic fracture and massive bruises that developed on the thighs and pelvic soft tissues; Furthermore, she was in severe pain. Fortunately (my wife’s) was nothing but a large cut on her scalp by a buckle that she had in her hair.
(They took us) to the largest trauma hospital in Havana. I arrived in hypovolemic shock due to internal bleeding and pain. They left me stranded in a wheelchair that needed one. I was not seen by a doctor until eight hours later. They never gave me a pain reliever. Like all other patients, it was my friends’ turn to buy drugs from outside pharmacies. They took some X-rays and gave them to me and my friends to dry by shaking them. I had a tomogram taken using a first generation machine. The table I was told to lie on for this was stained with the fresh blood from the previous patient.
Fortunately, a male nurse took pity on me and instead of making me walk between the offices, he carried me in his arms. My wife had a chamba sewn on her scalp without anesthesia. The one who sewed it was maybe some student of who knows what. Once admitted, they left me lying on a bed in a general ward. No pain relievers, no IV fluids. The bed was an unlined plastic mattress. Finally they put a sheet on him, probably because I’m a gringo, because the other patients didn’t have one. When the orthopedist came to examine me, he saw me lying down with my tennis shoes still on and with my legs bent from the pain caused by my pelvic fracture. He asked me why I was wearing my shoes. I told him because the pain was too severe to take them off. He asked me if that’s how I used to sleep at home. Really.
No one ever came to see me during the night. I hydrated with drinks my friends brought me from outside. As there was no duck, one of them went to steal another patient’s. During the night, as there was no nurse and I couldn’t move, I had to beg the wife of a neighboring patient to give me the duck. All neighboring patients received their food brought from outside by their families. The orthopedist was well trained and of good professional quality, but the available resources were definitely scarce or non-existent. Fortunately I did not require surgical intervention and I stabilized spontaneously.
This was not an exceptional episode. I developed a good relationship with the orthopedist who cautiously confided to me the hardships he always goes through to treat his patients due to the absolute lack of the slightest resources. During this episode the biggest concern of all was the possible political repercussions related to my case. I received several official visits insisting that I be transferred to a hospital for foreigners ”.
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