A recent article in The Miami Herald “Cuba hikes pay for doctors at home and abroad”, by Juan O. Tamayo, points out to the miserable payments that Cuban physicians obtain for the services they render. As a move towards improving this situation the Castro regime announced the doubling of health care provider’s salaries. Doctors, the highest paid, would start receiving $60 a month instead of the $30 now collecting. Those working abroad get a better remuneration of approximately $1,200. These professionals “sold” as any other commodity to other countries by Cuba, in a practice that should be condemned as a form of slavery, earn approximately $8.2 billion yearly to Castro’s coffers.
Tamayo’s article further explains other details about the pay structure in the island. As revealing as this piece of writing is, it brought to mind the so often repeated myth of the superb health care system in Cuba. As many other Cuban American practitioners, we have endeavored to counteract the false propaganda that has been repeated about this subject. In some instances colleagues have attended meetings in the island, and with a great risk to themselves abandoned the official “tours”, and taken pictures of the reality existing in their facilities.
Conversations with Cuban physicians that we have had occasion to meet in other countries, and others that have decided to come live to the U.S., plus smuggled pictures, were used by us to confront the “naïve” colleagues, in a concerted effort to demonstrate that the often repeated wonders of Cuba’s health care are nothing more than a broken myth. The facts tell a totally different story than what Cuba’s tyrants would like you to believe. There are excellent hospitals in Cuba that deliver great care. Unfortunately, these are reserved for the “elite”, and tourists that pay in dollars. As everything else, it is another way for the rulers to enrich themselves on the backs of the population. The general public attends institutions that are miserable, lack the proper basic instruments, and are an affront to humanity.
Statistics usually mentioned to promote the greatness of the system, are given by the government and thus totally unreliable. Case in point, are the audio tapes made by Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet exposing the late term abortion practices that are used for research, and to kill the unborn with “defects”, thus reducing the infant mortality rate and illnesses.
What faces a common Cuban when suffering from an illness that require hospitalization is a filthy facility, used and unclean instruments, a bed with a dirty mattress and a need to bring their own pillows, soap, and anything else that they might require. Pictures taken of Mazorra, a mental institution, by an associate and smuggled to this country show human beings naked, starving, and an image resembling a concentration camp rather than a hospital. This is the cruel reality of the famous Castrocare!
Fernando J Milanes MD
