A surgeon in Havana detailed the devastating impact of US sanctions on Cuba’s healthcare, describing how a lack of basic medical supplies contributed to preventable deaths. Despite successful surgery on an elderly man with a perforated ulcer, the absence of intravenous crystalloid fluids—essential and inexpensively produced just hundreds of miles away—meant he could not be stabilized and ultimately died. The scarcity was directly linked to halted transportation caused by fuel shortages, a consequence of economic sanctions.
This shortage extends beyond isolated incidents. The surgeon recounted a recent case of a two-year-old girl with severe gastroenteritis who faced life-threatening dehydration. Even pediatric hospitals, traditionally prioritized in resource distribution, struggled with insufficient intravenous fluids. The hospital director rationed the fluids tightly, highlighting the crisis severity in Cuba’s healthcare system.
Official statistics from Cuba’s government confirm rising infant mortality rates, which have increased from historically low levels to significantly higher since 2019. This trend correlates with shortages in essential medicines, affecting two-thirds of required drugs, and growing outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya. Compounding these health challenges, over 1.4 million Cubans have emigrated since 2020, including thousands of healthcare professionals, further straining medical infrastructure and reducing birth rates to a 65-year low.
The surgeon attributes these outcomes not to internal governance failures but to a sustained campaign of economic pressure through the US blockade. The blockade, which began as a trade embargo in 1962 following an explicit US policy memo aiming to cause “hunger, desperation and overthrow of government,” has inflicted billions of dollars in damage. Recent estimates place losses at $7.5 billion within the last two years alone and over $170 billion cumulatively. This policy systematically undermines Cuba’s ability to maintain essential services, with the resulting humanitarian crisis sometimes cited to justify foreign intervention.