Healthcare in Cuba is free, but at what cost? | Opinion

My wife and I sat with a group of friends in the living room of our Havana home in the summer of 2021, sorting through medicines and medical supplies that fellow Cubans had brought from abroad and collected in Havana to alleviate the suffering of people affected by our country’s broken healthcare system, as COVID-19 cases caused a collapse in medical services in the seaside city of Matanzas.

The healthcare crisis in Matanzas, along with the precarious conditions that the Cuban people were facing, sparked massive anti-government demonstrations that were unprecedented in Cuba’s post-revolutionary history, spreading across the island and lasting more than 72 hours.

While protesters shouted in the streets, those in my living room were resolved to help our fellow Cubans in what we believed was the best way possible. In essence, we were helping form Cuba’s alternative but necessary grassroots healthcare network.

The complexities and contradictions of Cuba’s reality are reflected in a public health system that was established in 1961, two years after Fidel Castro came to power. The system was designed to provide all Cubans free access to health services, which the new socialist government considered a fundamental human right — while they ironically ignored so many others like freedom of speech or free press.

But in July 2021, the massive mobilization of Cuban civil society included street protests but also a surge of volunteer humanitarian networks like ours.

During those days, we watched the television news in astonishment as President Miguel Díaz-Canel chose violence over dialogue in the government’s treatment of the protesters.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian aid networks we were working with had operated on the Island long before the demonstrations of 2021 and the pandemic. Here’s how it works: Cubans living in exile, mostly in Miami and Madrid, organize the collection of over the counter medicines, hygiene items, non-perishable food and clothing. They often also organize fundraisers for specific causes and cases. The items are sent with Cubans or foreigners traveling to the island.

Inside Cuba, the items are received by volunteers who have previously identified people in need. The beneficiaries of the goods provide their full name, age, address, illness, the medication they need and some evidence that a doctor prescribed it for them.

Volunteers learn about specific needs and communicate mainly through social media and other messaging platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. These networks now extend to other provinces.

Cubans who travel outside the country also bring back medicines for resale now that they no longer have to declare uncontrolled medications and hygiene products at customs.

Still, the shortage of medicines and medical supplies continues today, with many people taking to social media to tell their stories of hunting down supplies such as anesthesia, suture thread, gauze and antibiotics to undergo surgery.

Last month, Cubans took to the streets again, this time in Santiago de Cuba, to protest their living conditions, which includes a shortage of medical care.

The amount of money invested in healthcare must be increased to alleviate the suffering of the Cuban people because even when the underground networks help a lot of people, this is only a Band-aid solution. The island’s investment priorities need to change, from building new hotels to guaranteeing the basic needs of the Cuban people.

Cuba’s boasting of its free healthcare system is comical. Back in the 1990s, it enjoyed generous subsidies from the Soviet Union, and the island’s healthcare services became the banner to celebrate Cuba’s revolution, making it the one thing the island’s leaders could point to as a shining achievement when Cuba’s economy tanked.

That changed with the collapse of Soviet socialism in 1991. The quality of Cuban health services plunged. By the time COVID-19 showed up several years ago, healthcare on the island was already suffering.

The Cuban government needs to show that the well-being of its people is a priority. People in dire economic situations most affected by the healthcare crisis must have their voices heard. Political prisoners from the July 11, 2021 Patria y Vida demonstrations need to be released and their access to fair healthcare needs to be guaranteed.

The country’s leadership must take responsibility for the calamities my people have endured for the last 60 years.

Rocio Baró Guerra is a Cuban activist.