Cuban doctors voice rare criticism of Covid-19 handling by government

But as Cuba offers with shortages of medicines and oxygen and hospitals are overwhelmed with surging coronavirus instances, tensions between the government and well being care staff --who are required to work for the state-- have boiled over.

During a go to in August to the hard-hit province of Cienfuegos, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz blamed well being care staff' lack of self-discipline and "errors" for the breakdown in medical companies.

Marrero acknowledged residents had complained a few lack of medicines as effectively however mentioned "they are less than the complaints of mistreatment, of neglect or that [doctors] don't make visits. That's incredible!"

The feedback ignited a firestorm amongst well being care staff who've borne the brunt of the pandemic in Cuba, usually whereas having to buy their very own protecting gear and clarify to sufferers sick with Covid why hospitals have run out of primary medicines and beds.

The Cuban government blames the US embargo for breakdowns within the healthcare system, however critics level out that the identical US financial sanctions don't forestall the government from investing in a string of shiny new inns.

"We just ask that they tell the truth," mentioned Dr. Rosell Alberteris, in a video posted on-line. "We only demand the supplies to treat our patients with dignity and decorum."

"We want to keep working, we want to keep saving lives," mentioned Dr. Daily Almaguer within the video. "We are not responsible for the sanitary collapse in our country."

At least 39 well being care staff have uploaded movies from Holguín, a metropolis of almost 300,000 individuals near the small city the place each Fidel and Raul Castro have been born, complaining of abysmal circumstances in hospitals overrun by Covid.

Some of the doctors recorded movies from inside their hospitals, speaking barely in a whisper as they slammed their government's failures.

More Cuban doctors and nurses on social media from everywhere in the island have expressed their assist for the net protest, which is all of the extra outstanding because the Cuban government on Tuesday introduced draconian new measures that prohibited "fake news" and postings that harm the island's "prestige."

"We aren't afraid of the pandemic, we are afraid of the government," Dr. Rafael Alejandro Fuentes Sanchez mentioned in one other video posted on-line. "How they could interpret that we have come out to demand our rights and the people's right to receive good medical attention."

Cuba's most important newspaper, the Communist-party each day Granma mentioned the well being staff have been being utilized in "new enemy campaigns" and being became spokespeople for an "anti-Cuban offensive."

Cuban officers additionally appeared to defuse the confrontation with their frontline staff because the island's battered well being care system confronts essentially the most precarious second of the pandemic so far.

"Every time it seems we are tired, exhausted, beaten from this long period of the pandemic," wrote Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Twitter. "We think about how much our doctors and nurses have given."

Officials have begun to carry again brigades of Cuban well being care staff from postings overseas and admit that the state of affairs is much worse than the island's statistics let on.

Amidst a scarcity in exams, Cuban Health Minister José Angel Portal Miranda instructed the state-run Invasor newspaper that solely individuals who had a constructive Covid outcome on the time of loss of life are counted as having died of the coronavirus.

"Not all the fatalities are able to take or obtain a PCR result," the newspaper concluded. "Death sometimes arrives first."

Magdiel Jorge Castro instructed CNN his grandfather died on Wednesday after being despatched house from the hospital in Holguín the place he was unable to obtain outcomes from a Covid take a look at he took days earlier. Oxygen had run out within the hospital.

Castro mentioned his grandfather suffered from a fever and fatigue and that different members of his household are unwell with Covid-like signs. After his grandfather's loss of life, Castro mentioned his household struggled to bury him.

"The funeral services are collapsed. There aren't any coffins," Castro mentioned. "My family was in despair to have a deceased person for 15 hours in their bed in the tropical heat. The funeral home said there were 16 cases like his, people without a place to be buried."