illustration: Adán Iglesias Toledo
Only those of us who live in Cuba can truly grasp the intensity, the injustice, and the inhumane escalation of the blockade, which the U.S. regime has recently intensified with tremendous ferocity against the Caribbean island.
I recently experienced firsthand what Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla denounced at a recent press conference when he stated: “The crime being committed against our country is evident. There is no pretext, however false it may be, to justify the act of collective punishment to which the U.S. government is subjecting our people.”
And he added: “The entire world knows what is happening today against our people. The deliberate effect of this policy results in long hours without electricity for our families; days and weeks without a supply of drinking water; a breakdown in health services; deaths that should not have occurred, which are due to the blockade—such as those resulting from the doubling of the infant mortality rate, the lack of appropriate medication, the lack of the latest technological equipment for treatment, the failure of medical equipment, the lack of spare parts, or the lack of power. The lack of medications, the shortage of public transportation, the constraints on food production that drive up prices significantly, the cost of living, and the erosion of wages in certain sectors of the economy that have halted their operations.”
Last Wednesday, October 21, after managing to find a tricycle to transport us (not the most suitable vehicle for a heart patient), I took my brother-in-law to a cardiology appointment at the 10 de Octubre Hospital. They couldn’t perform the electrocardiogram because the machine was broken and there were no replacement parts. The doctor who kindly attended to us adjusted his treatment, which also includes doubling the dose of carvedilol; however, the medication is not available at the pharmacy and must be obtained through donations or purchased at exorbitant prices on the black market.
That same night, my partner experienced severe pain in her abdomen and back. We managed to get a neighbor to drive us in his car to the 10 de Octubre Hospital, which is the closest one to Luyanó, where we live. We paid him only the cost of gas (about 7,000 pesos). When we arrived at the emergency room, a doctor attended to us promptly but immediately informed us that they didn’t have the reagents needed to perform a urine test for what appeared to be renal colic, nor did they have any pain medication.
She told us we could do an ultrasound, and the diagnosis revealed that she had a kidney stone passing through her urinary tract.
Since I needed to find a way to give him an injection to relieve the pain, I started calling some friends at 10:30 p.m., and one of them told me she had injectable diclofenac. Since she lived near the hospital, the neighbor in the car drove us to pick up the medication, and when we got home, I gave him the injection, which provided quick relief.
Can you imagine all the stress this entails—how many patients have to return home without access to necessary medication—and the helplessness and sorrow endured by our efficient and compassionate doctors, who are unable to provide even a simple treatment to their patients?
A single example speaks volumes: more than 7,000 containers of food, medicine, and medical devices destined for the island remain stranded in foreign ports due to pressure from the United States.
It is an inhumane blockade and a form of genocide against Cuba that greatly affects the entire population.
As the Cuban foreign minister stated at the press conference: “No pretext of any kind could serve to justify acts of genocide or acts of collective punishment. No political differences between governments, not even under wartime conditions. No pretext related to the United States’ persistent objective—regime change in Cuba—can in any way justify acts of genocide and collective punishment. This is an attempt to suffocate an entire population, to destroy a small nation.”
Dear reader, this is the reality facing the entire Cuban people today because the truth is that Cuba is not a threat—the blockade is.