Cuban health care is a catastrophe

How did the Castro regime's propaganda machine manage to fool so many for so long?

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"If there's one thing they do right in Cuba, it's health care," said Michael Moore in a 2007 interview. "Cuba has the best health care system in the entire area," according to Angela Davis, "and in many respects much better than the U.S."

"One thing that's well established in the global health community is the strength of the Cuban national health system," said Clare Wenham, a professor at the London School of Economics.

Claims like these have appeared in hundreds of documentaries, newspaper articles, and magazine features over the years celebrating the supposed marvel of Cuba's health care system. It's a testament to the effectiveness of the Castro regime's propaganda apparatus that this myth, so deeply at odds with reality, has persisted for so long.

"The Cuban health care system is destroyed," Rotceh Rios Molina, a Cuban doctor who escaped the country's medical mission while stationed in Mexico, tells Reason in Spanish. "The doctor's offices are in very bad shape."

"People are dying in the hallways," says José Angel Sánchez, another Cuban doctor who defected from the medical mission in Venezuela, tells Reason in Spanish.

According to Rios, Sánchez, and others with firsthand experience practicing medicine in Cuba, the island nation's health care system is a catastrophe. It's exactly what you'd expect in a country impoverished by communism.

In the 15 years since the release of Michael Moore's 'Sicko,' which celebrated Cuban health care, everyday citizens have been armed with smartphones and social media, empowering them to tell the truth about what it's really like in Cuban hospitals.

So how did the Castro regime's propaganda machine manage to fool so many for so long? According to Maria Werlau, executive director of the Cuba Archive, the answer lies with Cuba's foreign medical missions, which are teams of health care professionals dispatched to provide emergency and routine care to foreign countries.

Rios participated in the medical mission in Sierra Leone in 2013, where health care specialists from around the world came to help contain the Ebola epidemic. The members of the mission were told that when they returned to Cuba, they would be received as heroes. Rios says that, while he did receive a stipend that went to cover his living expenses, medical personnel from other countries were generously compensated.

In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch said the Cuban medical missions "violate [doctors'] fundamental rights," including "the right to privacy, freedom of expression and association, liberty, and movement, among others." It noted that "many doctors feel pressured to participate in the missions and fear retaliation if they do not..."

After the mission in Sierra Leone, Rios was redeployed to a military base in Mexico. One day, he was sent with a group of doctors to buy some phone cards so they could connect with their relatives back home. He decided to make his escape. Rios found a job at a Mexican pharmacy and started saving money to pay a coyote to bring him into the U.S. He was picked up by border officials, and taken to an immigrant detention center for 42 days. After his release, he could join his family in Miami.

The medical missions are primarily a way of selling Cuban health care services abroad. So what's health care like for those living on the island?

Julio Cesar Alfonso is the president of the Miami-based Solidarity Without Borders, which helps Cuban doctors who have escaped. He says that there are two health care systems in Cuba—one that is used by the majority of regular citizens, and another that is reserved for tourists and the Cuban elite.

Sánchez thinks that, as the Castros' health care myth crumbles, ordinary Cubans are beginning to realize that they are not threatened by foreign enemies, as the regime propaganda machine has claimed for decades.

"The only enemy of the Cuban people," he says, "is the Cuban government."

Written and hosted by Daniel Raisbeck and Jim Epstein; narrated by Daniel Raisbeck; edited by John Osterhoudt; camera by Epstein, Osterhoudt, Isaac Reese, and Meredith Bragg; graphic design by Nathalie Walker; animations by Reese and Osterhoudt; additional editing support by Regan Taylor; ; additional research by Alexandra De Caires; translation assistance by María Jose Inojosa Salina; English subtitles by Caitlin Peters.

[americankulak]

My Cuban friend told me a joke: a Cuban man gets visited by God and God says, "You can look at hell first before deciding if you want to go there." So he goes and there are models and drinks and it's just paradise. So, he says, I want to go to hell. So he is taken to hell and it's just an absolute dive. No electricity, absolutely terrible. He says to Satan, "But what about the place God took me?" Satan says, "You idiot, as a Cuban you ought to know the difference between a tourist and a resident."

[conradolacerda]

8:20 Same story here in Brazil: under the socialist presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, many Cuban doctors came to work in remote towns and villages, receiving less than 1/3 of the stipend that the Brazilian government paid to Cuba. When the current president, Bolsonaro (the 'fascist", according to the international press), was elected in 2018, one of his first measures was to decree that these doctors ought to receive 100% of the stipend and that the Brazilian government would start paying directly to them. The Cuban government responded by immediately recalling all doctors, with reports of families being threatened in case they didn't go back.

[LizRealGirlBeauty]

I love how Harvey Winstein is standing there behind Michael Moore while he says that Cuban Healthcare is so great.

[ILikeCatsMoreThanILikeYou]

I remember last time I was in Cuba I asked my friend who was born and raised there about the healthcare system. He said there are two seperate systems, one for tourists and one for citizens.

[johnestupido]

When ever I want to hear from a person that knows about health, I look at Michael Moore. The picture of health.

[davidr]

I want to see Michael Moore travel to Cuba when he needs healthcare lol. That would be poetic justice. What a liar that man is.

[poodlescone]

You can not have doctors who choose to drive cabs to survive while still claiming the country has the BEST Healthcare system.

[primordialmeow]

Was working as an RN in California, one of the few US states with a nurses union, when Michael Moore's film Sicko came out. I remember marvellimg at the marvelous healthcare system in Cuba. Now I think there is much more to this story.

[bryanboone]

Cuba has such awesome healthcare, they are willing to float across 90 miles of shark infested water on boats made of trash to flee from it.

[freecuba]

This is a serious analysis of the Cuban healthcare system. Kudos.

[papasfunnyfarm]

I was in Cuba 3 times, 6 years ago. Missionary work. We support “house churches”: small groups that meet in peoples apartments. One group started meeting in a small garage, but the group quickly grew. It attracted too many people, so the government came and quietly cut apart the garage and left only the concrete slab it was sitting on. Message sent: You may Pray and sing, but don’t get too many people together in one place.
I needed some laxative. There is a guard posted in front of most pharmacies. He allowed me and my translator into the tiny drugstore, no one else in there with us.
We were told that if we need to go to the hospital, we must take our own meds, blankets, lightbulbs, etc.
The Cuban PEOPLE are some of the nicest on Earth! Fun loving, kind and sharing. 80 year old lady I stayed with insisted that I use her bedroom, because it was the only room with AC! I am very sad thinking about their troubles now…

[danimg]

Thank You Reason!! As a CUBAN immigrant, I really appreciate your work on this short documentary exposing the TRUTH about the disgusting propaganda about the Cuban Communist Dictatorship

[Rundark-]

"The enemy of the Cuban people, is the government" I'd say that is the enemy of all people, their own government!

[homewall]

Funny how people who live by greed and envy and want to take property/wealth from others for themselves are the first to claim they aren't selfish. They just want your stuff for themselves, and you are selfish for not giving it to them.

[HebrewHammerArmsCo]

Lols, We were in Havana in 2010, one of our friends became sick to the point we took them to the hospital. The medication they recommended, they advised us to to go buy it on the black market, and told us where to go and find it.... The hospital looked that disgusting, we were in touch with out travel insurance about a Emergency Medical Evacuation. Yeah Michael Moore LIED.. On a side note, Still loved the Holiday... And Hotel Raquel is one of the most beautiful hotels i have ever stayed in... Without an insane price tag

[jeffarchibald]

I have seen Cuban heath care in person. What a joke. Doctors they have, but no medicine and no equipment. Not even pain medicine for those dying horrible cancer deaths. Barbaric.

[EF-]

Someone said to me once extolling Cuba's healthcare, "Cuba exports more doctors than anyone".
I said, "the key there is exporting, not importing." You'd think Cuba, Venezuela, et al, would be crying about a flood of immigrants.

[truemvp]

THANK YOU FOR THIS, FINALLY EXPOSING THE BLATANT LIES.

[Drumsgoon]

Indeed! I had discussions about this with fellow travellers in the early 2010s. Incredibly naive, or outrightly dishonest.

[jeanniemaycrawford]

I'm from India, initially i thought, oh, these conditions look just like our government funded hospitals then as I watched the video I slowly realised how wrong I was, India's government funded health care is trash but it's no where as bas as cuba