Oswaldo Lastres. Chicago Tribune. May 24, 2001
Hinsdale -- The Tribune published "Promise
of cures lures tourists to Cuba. They get cut-rate treatment; Havana gets
hard currency" (Page 1, April 30), a story on Cuba's lucrative tourist
health-care system. Prior to the revolution, free education and health care were
already available, yet Fidel Castro now takes credit for a health-care system
comparable to none.
His health-care system treats dollar-bearing tourists with the best of the
best, while average Cubans go without needed treatment, medicine, supplies and
even food and linen. Of course the Cuban government blames the U.S. embargo for
the shortages, yet tourist hospitals are stocked with the best of modern
technology.
How can Cuba provide such services at low cost and how can its government
send doctors to other countries in need? Because they have an overabundance of
underpaid doctors. How does a cash-strapped government provide such wonderful
health care? Maybe Cuban health statistics aren't as wonderful as they appear.
Rural physicians are not allowed or are punished for reporting illnesses such as
dysentery.
According to "Rural doctors at heart of Cuban
medicine. System has given islanders better health, longer lives"
(News, May 7), preventative medicine is keeping Cubans healthy. But how can
people concentrate on preventing disease when they are busy struggling for
basics like food? How can all these rural doctors prevent disease when average
Cubans do not have access to medical supplies? Why are Cuban physicians no
longer allowed to leave this island paradise? | 