Yet some of the “advances” require some context. For example, Havana rightfully boasted that its infant mortality rate for 2007 of 5.3 per 1,000 births was one of the world’s lowest. But figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Cuba ranked 23rd in the world in 1960, and 27th in 2004. The CIA World Fact Book placed Cuba in 72nd place for 2013.
And the best medical care is available only to senior officials and dollar-paying foreigners, not ordinary Cubans, said Dr. Julio Cesar Alfonso, who practiced in Cuba from 1992 to ’99 and now lives in Miami. He cited the contrast between two hospitals where he worked, CIMEQ in Havana and a provincial hospital in the north-central city of Cárdenas.
CIMEQ, which treats many top Cuban officials and foreigners, has air conditioning and private suites, Alfonso said. Patients in Cárdenas, meanwhile, must bring their own bed sheets, and cots are lined one next to the other.
Alfonso also described chronic shortages of medical supplies in virtually all places that treat ordinary Cubans — again, not foreigners or senior officials. “Shortages go from simple aspirin to a wide range of antibiotics to medicines to deal with chronic illness.”
A 2007 report by Katherine Hirschfeld, a professor at the University of Oklahoma who spent several years in Cuba, said islanders have a dim view of their healthcare system, even though it’s free.
“After just a few months of research,” Hirschfeld wrote, “it became increasingly obvious that many Cubans did not appear to have a very positive view of the healthcare system. … A number of people complained to me informally that their doctors were unhelpful, that the best clinics and hospitals only served political elites and that scarce medical supplies were often stolen from hospitals and sold on the black market.”
