Héctor Maseda, Grupo Decoro / CubaNet
HAVANA, September - Getting a pair of prescription eyeglasses in a
price-controlled government establishment in Cuba is a difficult proposition.
Laura Pollán Toledo, 53, found out four years ago that she was
far-sighted. At that time an optometrist prescribed the appropriate lenses to
correct the condition.
"In February, 1998," Pollán says, "I went to the El
Almendares optician's, the one I have to use based on where I live. The clerk
took down my name, address, and type of lenses I needed. She told me they were
out right then, but that they would let me know through the mail when they got
them in."
The years went by and the notification never came. Pollán has been by
the optician's more than a dozen times since the first time.
"The answer," she says, "is always the same. They say there
are no lenses because there haven't been any donations from abroad, that they
are still taking care of cases from 1997, and that they sent me a note, but that
the mails are unreliable." Pollán is still waiting for the glasses.
Guadalupe Ravelo was appointed director of El Almendares four months ago. "This
establishment became part of an industrial complex when they merged six units
into one, serving three of the four most populous municipalities in Havana, with
a total head count of over 400,000."
Ravelo continued, "For approximately four years we haven't been
assigned lenses by the higher entity (the Public Health Ministry). Most of the
foreign donations received in the country go to hospitals; the portion that we
get is very small.
"The workers that I supervise manage to do wonderful things with
machines that are forty years old, with no spare parts and very little
maintenance. This way, we can barely take care of our clients. Until June of
this year, we had more than 147,000 applications for glasses, and we have only
been able to cut 32,000 lenses. But the number of orders grows geometrically,
while our resources only grow in an arithmetic progression. There is no
correspondence between the two. We can't do more under the present
circumstances."
During my conversation with Ravelo, we were interrupted several times by
unhappy petitioners, whose complaints ranged from timid protests to violent
threats.
The lucky few who have access to dollars can obtain their glasses
immediately in the government's dollar-denominated optician's, but those that
must depend on the government's price-controlled establishments to pay in pesos,
wait indefinitely.
Versión
original en español
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