Bitter pill: Cuba runs low on life-saving medicines
On a near daily basis she sprints from one state-run pharmacy to another on a quest for pills and syringes. Increasingly, she has to turn to the black market and pay the higher prices there. That is if they have what she needs.
Rodriguez, who left her job as a physiotherapist to care for her sickly son, receives a monthly state grant of less than $12. Her husband's salary is not much more.
And as Cuba sinks ever deeper into its worst economic crisis in decades -- with critical shortages also of food and fuel, regular power blackouts and rampant inflation -- Rodriguez fears that one day the drugs may run out altogether.
"It drives me crazy," the 27-year-old told AFP at her home in Havana's Santa Fe neighborhood as her son Luis Angelo, watched a cartoon on her mobile.
"Missing a dose, not having the suction tubes, a catheter that cannot be replaced... all can lead to serious illnesses which can cost him his life."
Luis Angelo was born with a deformed esophagus, and while he waits to receive a transplant, breathes through a tracheostomy and eats though a tube inserted into his stomach. He is also asthmatic, has a heart condition, and suffers epileptic fits.
The boy takes seven different drugs daily, and needs a variety of tubes, syringes and other equipment to administer them.
Cuba, reputed for supplying highly trained medical doctors to other countries and for its advanced domestic pharmaceutical industry, has long counted vaccines and medical services among its top exports.
Under US sanctions since 1962, and hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic that all but tanked its tourism industry, the communist country is now no longer medically self-sufficient.
Last year, the island nation of 9.7 million people could not afford the $300 million needed to import the raw materials it needed to produce hundreds of critical medicines.
- Days when there's nothing -
In Havana, and further afield, pharmacy shelves are bare and hospitals lack basic supplies such as gauze, suturing thread, disinfectant and oxygen.
"There are days when there's nothing," a doctor in the capital told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Cuba's healthcare system is public and meant to be universally accessible. Private pharmacies, clinics and hospitals are illegal.
Patients who require chronic medicine are issued with a document known as a "tarjeton," which allows them access to subsidized medicines.
Luis Angelo has a "tarjeton," but it is of little use if pharmacies don't have the drugs, said his mom.
On the black market, she is forced to pay $3 to $4 for a blister sheet of pills -- about a quarter of the average monthly Cuban salary at the unofficial exchange rate.
"The price is cruel," Rodriguez told AFP.
- Ray of hope -
Confronted with the ever-worsening medicine shortage, the government has since 2021 allowed travelers to bring back food and medicines in their luggage -- though not for resale.
Some of these drugs are feeding a black market that profits from the desperately infirm with sales via WhatsApp or internet sites.
Other sites, however, offer drugs for free or barter them for food.
In the NGO sphere, projects have also emerged to provide medicines to Cubans free of charge.
One, dubbed Palomas, has helped tens of thousands of people since its creation in Havana in 2021.
It relies on medicines that people have "left over from a treatment, or were brought by someone from abroad," coordinator Sergio Cabrera told AFP.
Every day, in 13 WhatsApp groups, Palomas publishes a list of medicines it has available, and another list of those it needs.
One beneficiary was 32-year-old dentist Ibis Montalban, who said she managed to get her mother's chronic diabetes medication through Palomas, adding: "thank you, thank you, thank you."
Cabrera says it is hard to witness the suffering of people in need.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bangkok Post
14 hours ago
- Bangkok Post
Researchers redesign vaginal speculum to ease fear and pain
DELFT (NETHERLANDS) - It is cold, hard, metallic and commonly associated with pain. Not a mediaeval torture instrument, but the vaginal speculum used every day around the world for essential gynaecological exams. Two engineers at Delft University in the Netherlands are now rethinking the decades-old design of the speculum -- long dreaded by many patients -- to make it less intimidating and less painful. "I have a lot of experience with the vaginal speculum, unfortunately," Tamara Hoveling, one of the researchers behind the project, told AFP. "I've never seen it as a pleasurable experience and I've always wondered why it looks like this." - Sombre history - The PhD candidate in medical industrial design then delved into the dark history behind the creation of the speculum, one version of which was developed by United States doctor James Marion Sims 180 years ago. It was "tested on enslaved women without permission", said the 29-year-old. "So that motivated me even more to take on this project." Hoveling teamed up with Ariadna Izcara Gual, who was then working on her master's in industrial design engineering at Delft. "As I was doing a lot of interviews, I was doing those sort of sketches with the same sort of shape but people were still scared of the device", said the 28-year-old Spanish researcher. The Cusco speculum, the most commonly used model, is a metal device with a handle, beak and screw to adjust how wide it opens once inside the vagina. For many, its insertion is uncomfortable or even painful and causes anxiety. When you get scared, your muscles clamp together and that makes it even harder to relax. "Then the speculum is opened, pushing against these tense muscles and making it even more painful," Hoveling said. "So I tried to look for shapes that might be related to the reproductive organs, like for example the flower, that also opens." - Patient-friendly design - The result was a prototype called the Lilium -- named after the lily flower. Like the more familiar tampon, it has soft plastic and an applicator. "It's designed with the patient in mind rather than the doctor. "And we're really trying to improve the comfort aspect in a sensitive spot." The Lilium also meets doctors' needs. Its three-sided opening keeps the vaginal walls from collapsing, allowing better visibility during examinations. The Lilium remains at an early stage, with further ergonomic testing and material research needed to refine the prototype. The researchers must still secure safety certifications, run human trials and obtain regulatory approval before it can reach clinics. - Dazzling success - To fund the next phase, they launched a crowdfunding campaign that quickly drew media attention in the Netherlands. Within just two days, the campaign raised 100,000 euros ($117,000) -- far surpassing expectations. "It's also a sign. It's proof there are people who really want change, that there is a real problem here and that the current market solutions are not the best," Hoveling said. "I've received a lot of emails from women who told me they actually don't go to the gynaecologist because of this device, because they're scared, because they have a traumatic experience." Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women, according to the World Health Organization. It can be detected via a smear test or HPV screening -- both performed using a speculum. With funding to allow this new gynaecological tool to be developed properly, the Lilium could be saving lives within five years.
Bangkok Post
4 days ago
- Bangkok Post
Gaza civil defence says Israeli strike kills children at clinic
GAZA CITY (PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES) - Gaza's civil defence agency said eight children -- killed as they queued for nutritional supplements outside a health clinic -- were among 66 people who died in Israeli strikes on the Palestinian territory Thursday. The agency said the children were among 17 victims in a strike on Deir el-Balah. According to the UN children's agency, the dead included a one-year-old boy whose mother said he had spoken his first words just hours earlier. The mother was critically injured, UNICEF added. "No parent should have to face such tragedy," UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement. "The killing of families trying to access life-saving aid is unconscionable," she added. US-based charity Project Hope, which runs the facility, said the victims were waiting for the clinic to open to receive treatment for malnutrition, infections and illness. The charity gave a toll of 15 dead, including 10 children and two women. Its president and chief executive Rabih Torbay called the strike "a blatant violation of international humanitarian law." Yousef Al-Aydi, 30, was among dozens of people -- most of them women and children -- in the queue. "Suddenly, we heard the sound of a drone approaching, and then the explosion happened," he told AFP by phone. "The ground shook beneath our feet, and everything around us turned into blood and deafening screams." Israel has expanded its military operations in Gaza, where the war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the population of more than two million people. The Israeli military told AFP that it targetted a Hamas militant in Deir el-Balah who had infiltrated Israel during the group's October 7, 2023 attack. It said it "regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimise harm as much as possible", adding the incident was under review. - 'Killed instantly' - Mohammed Abu Ouda, 35, was also in the queue at Project Hope. "What was our fault? What was the fault of the children?" he asked. "I saw a mother hugging her child on the ground, both motionless -- they were killed instantly." AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details due to media restrictions in Gaza. Four people were killed and several injured in a separate pre-dawn air strike on a home in Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza, civil defence agency official Mohammed al-Mughair added. AFP footage from Al-Bureij showed a family including three young children sitting among rubble outside their tattered tent after an air strike hit a house next door. Elsewhere, three people, including a woman, were killed by Israeli gunfire on civilians near an aid centre in the southern city of Rafah, the civil defence agency said. More than 600 people have been killed around aid distributions and convoys in Gaza since late May, when Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies, the United Nations said in early July. The European Union on Thursday said it had struck a deal with Israel to open more crossings for aid, as well as to repair infrastructure and protect aid workers. "We count on Israel to implement every measure agreed," EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X. The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures. Israel's retaliatory strikes have killed at least 57,762 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The United Nations deems the figures reliable.
Bangkok Post
6 days ago
- Bangkok Post
Bitter pill: Cuba runs low on life-saving medicines
HAVANA - Cuban Jessica Rodriguez never knows if she will find the medicines that keep her four-year-old son alive in a country that has all but run out of essential drugs. On a near daily basis she sprints from one state-run pharmacy to another on a quest for pills and syringes. Increasingly, she has to turn to the black market and pay the higher prices there. That is if they have what she needs. Rodriguez, who left her job as a physiotherapist to care for her sickly son, receives a monthly state grant of less than $12. Her husband's salary is not much more. And as Cuba sinks ever deeper into its worst economic crisis in decades -- with critical shortages also of food and fuel, regular power blackouts and rampant inflation -- Rodriguez fears that one day the drugs may run out altogether. "It drives me crazy," the 27-year-old told AFP at her home in Havana's Santa Fe neighborhood as her son Luis Angelo, watched a cartoon on her mobile. "Missing a dose, not having the suction tubes, a catheter that cannot be replaced... all can lead to serious illnesses which can cost him his life." Luis Angelo was born with a deformed esophagus, and while he waits to receive a transplant, breathes through a tracheostomy and eats though a tube inserted into his stomach. He is also asthmatic, has a heart condition, and suffers epileptic fits. The boy takes seven different drugs daily, and needs a variety of tubes, syringes and other equipment to administer them. Cuba, reputed for supplying highly trained medical doctors to other countries and for its advanced domestic pharmaceutical industry, has long counted vaccines and medical services among its top exports. Under US sanctions since 1962, and hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic that all but tanked its tourism industry, the communist country is now no longer medically self-sufficient. Last year, the island nation of 9.7 million people could not afford the $300 million needed to import the raw materials it needed to produce hundreds of critical medicines. - Days when there's nothing - In Havana, and further afield, pharmacy shelves are bare and hospitals lack basic supplies such as gauze, suturing thread, disinfectant and oxygen. "There are days when there's nothing," a doctor in the capital told AFP on condition of anonymity. Cuba's healthcare system is public and meant to be universally accessible. Private pharmacies, clinics and hospitals are illegal. Patients who require chronic medicine are issued with a document known as a "tarjeton," which allows them access to subsidized medicines. Luis Angelo has a "tarjeton," but it is of little use if pharmacies don't have the drugs, said his mom. On the black market, she is forced to pay $3 to $4 for a blister sheet of pills -- about a quarter of the average monthly Cuban salary at the unofficial exchange rate. "The price is cruel," Rodriguez told AFP. - Ray of hope - Confronted with the ever-worsening medicine shortage, the government has since 2021 allowed travelers to bring back food and medicines in their luggage -- though not for resale. Some of these drugs are feeding a black market that profits from the desperately infirm with sales via WhatsApp or internet sites. Other sites, however, offer drugs for free or barter them for food. In the NGO sphere, projects have also emerged to provide medicines to Cubans free of charge. One, dubbed Palomas, has helped tens of thousands of people since its creation in Havana in 2021. It relies on medicines that people have "left over from a treatment, or were brought by someone from abroad," coordinator Sergio Cabrera told AFP. Every day, in 13 WhatsApp groups, Palomas publishes a list of medicines it has available, and another list of those it needs. One beneficiary was 32-year-old dentist Ibis Montalban, who said she managed to get her mother's chronic diabetes medication through Palomas, adding: "thank you, thank you, thank you." Cabrera says it is hard to witness the suffering of people in need.
