Utter one unflattering word about Cuba within earshot of a Leftist and as predictably as dogs responding to Pavlov’s ringing bell, you’ll soon hear the retort, “But they have free healthcare!” In short, the Left’s position remains something akin to, “Yes, I admit Cuba is a brutal dictatorship where dissenters are persecuted and imprisoned or sent to forced labor camps. Where gays and those with HIV are confined to Cuba’s equivalent of Leper Colonies. Where many Cubans are malnourished due to the meager rations afforded them in their La Libreta (Food Ration Book) and living in squalor. Where Cubans live under the watchful eye of their assigned Communist Party Block Captains. Where young mothers prostitute themselves to earn extras money to buy food on the black market to feed their children. Where the Communist State often mandates long, grueling work hours for those living in the worker’s paradise. BUT, they have free health care!” Yes, and the Cuban people are getting everything they paid for- nothing!

A Cuban doctor who defected in 1999 testified before Congress, “The Cuban medical system is a shameful disaster…Cubans have no quality of life. I’ve seen people die from diarrhea and malnutrition – things that shouldn’t happen in a developed country.” 

A Cuban nurse recalled, “We had to reuse needles until they were blunt. We lacked antibiotics, antiseptics, almost everything. Patients suffered terribly and many died from conditions that would have been easily treatable with proper supplies, according to the Encyclopedia of Cuba: People, History, Culture, Becker, W. S. (2004).

National Review’s Jay Nordlinger penned the best critique of Cuba’s decrepit healthcare system:

“The Left has always had a deep psychological need to believe in the myth of Cuban health care. On that island, as everywhere else, Communism has turned out to be a disaster: economic, physical, and moral. Not only have persecution, torture, and murder been routine, there is nothing material to show for it. The Leninist rationalization was, “You have to break some eggs to make an omelet.” Orwell memorably replied, “Where’s the omelet?” There is never an omelet. …there is excellent health care on Cuba — just not for ordinary Cubans. …there is not just one system, or even two: There are three. The first is for foreigners who come to Cuba specifically for medical care. This is known as “medical tourism.” The tourists pay in hard currency… The second health-care system is for Cuban elites — the Party, the military, official artists and writers, and so on. In the Soviet Union, these people were called the “nomenklatura.” And their system, like the one for medical tourists, is top-notch. Then there is the real Cuban system, the one that ordinary people must use — and it is wretched. Testimony and documentation on the subject are vast. Hospitals and clinics are crumbling. Conditions are so unsanitary, patients may be better off at home, whatever home is. If they do have to go to the hospital, they must bring their own bedsheets, soap, towels, food, light bulbs — even toilet paper. And basic medications are scarce. …The equipment that doctors have to work with is either antiquated or nonexistent. Doctors have been known to reuse latex gloves — there is no choice. …So deplorable is the state of health care in Cuba that old-fashioned diseases are back with a vengeance. These include tuberculosis, leprosy, and typhoid fever. And dengue, another fever, is a particular menace…a small bottle of tetracycline costs US$5 and a tube of cortisone cream will set you back as much as US$25. But neither are available at the local pharmacy, which is neat and spotless, but stocks almost nothing. Even the most common pharmaceutical items, such as Aspirin and rubbing alcohol, are conspicuously absent. …Antibiotics, one of the most valuable commodities on the cash-strapped Communist island, are in extremely short supply and available only on the black market. Aspirin can be purchased only at government-run dollar stores, which carry common medications at a huge markup in U.S. dollars. This puts them out of reach of most Cubans, who are paid little and in pesos. Their average wage is 300 pesos per month, about $12. …tourist hospitals in Cuba are well-stocked with the latest equipment and imported medicines, said a Cuban pediatrician, who did not want to be identified. … “Tourists have everything they need… But for Cubans, it’s different. Unless you work with tourists or have a relative in Miami sending you money, you will not be able to get what you need if you are sick in Cuba. As a doctor, I find it disgusting.”

Professor Katherine Hirschfeld, a Medical Anthropologist at the University of Oklahoma Medical School, spent a year in Cuba to study the effectiveness of the state-run Cuban healthcare system. Part of her findings include the following passage:

“Cuban government continues to respond to international criticism of its human rights record by citing…praise for its achievements in health and medicine…the unequivocally positive descriptions of the Cuban health care system in the social science literature are somewhat misleading. In the late 1990s, I conducted over nine months of qualitative ethnographic and archival research in Cuba. During that time, I shadowed physicians in family health clinics, conducted formal and informal interviews with a number of health professionals, lived in local communities, and sought to participate in everyday life as much as possible. Throughout the course of this research, I found a number of discrepancies between the way the Cuban health care system has been described in the scholarly literature, and the way it appears to be described and experienced by Cubans themselves. …After just a few months of research… it became increasingly obvious that many Cubans did not appear to have a very positive view of the health care system themselves. 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. Further criticisms were leveled at the politicization of medical care… Public criticism of the government is a crime in Cuba, and penalties are severe. Formally eliciting critical narratives about health care would be viewed as a criminal act both for me as a researcher, and for people who spoke openly with me. …One of the most readily apparent problems with the health care system in Cuba is the severe shortage of medicines, equipment, and other supplies. …Many Cubans (including a number of health professionals) also had serious complaints about the intrusion of politics into medical treatment and health care decision-making.”

Yes, like all Communist countries past and present, Cuba is a veritable totalitarian hellhole where a severe case of diarrhea can send you to an early grave and trying to escape the island prison can land you in a jungle gulag. Yet, there is now hope for the Cuban people. Help is on the way. Comandante Trump may soon be sending the US Marines to liberate you and punish your Communist masters. Your dictator, Raul Castro already has a warrant out for his arrest from the United States District Court. Soon he and all his little Communist helpers will face justice. ¡Cuba será libre!