• Home
  • The person behind the mask

Sin Evasion / Without Evasion

An English translation of Miriam Celaya's blog from Cuba

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« My Wish for 2012: Outraged People in Cuba
On the Same Side »

Broken Showcase

February 8, 2012 by Miriam Celaya

Façade of the Emergency Center at Calixto Garcia Hospital. Photo taken from the Internet.

Anyone who still harbors any hope about the niceties of the health system in Cuba has only to get sick and go see a doctor. It’s not hard at all, taking into consideration the number of rare diseases circulating among us these days, just within reach. And there are other illnesses, already endemic, such as dengue fever, that are here to stay and thrive in our environment, reinforced year after year by the arrival of returning missionaries, laden with new diseases to share, and those students benefitting from the rapidly dwindling ALBA programs, who are still bringing us new strains of diseases that are becoming endemic on the Island.

In recent days I was one of the “lucky” ones to receive the collateral benefit of the Castro comradeship. I acquired — I don’t know how or where — a strange virus that caused me three days of high fever and a total of 10 days of nausea and vomiting. My stomach barely tolerated a bit of water and some cold juices, and just three or four days ago I resumed my normal eating habits. Of course, my healthy constitution, my size and my good diet allowed me to firmly support the onslaught and survive the experience with sufficient strength: I scarcely lost a few pounds. Others have not been that lucky. I inquired among friends and acquaintances and learned that there are dozens of people who have been admitted for dehydration and were given IV’s. No one has obtained an accurate diagnosis for this disease and everyone is exposed to contract it, since no one knows for sure how it spreads. In the consulting rooms, doctors look at you with almost commiseration and pronounce the ever-cryptic same old sentence: “it’s a virus”.

I suppose that studying and practicing medicine in Cuba has become a game both mystical and very simple at the same time: everything that is not dengue, is “a virus”, and everything, including dengue fever, is treated in the same way: plenty of fluids and rest. So here we are.

In any case, a quick visit to the Calixto García Emergency Teaching Hospital finally convinced me that the dazzling showcase of public health, a bastion of the regime’s propaganda, is definitely broken. The building, recently repaired, has the same chaotic look as everything in the country: patients lying on stretchers in the middle of the waiting room for everyone to see, empty consulting rooms, doctors with expressions of bewildered astonishment and confusion, talking among themselves as if patients were merely  basic means and unfortunate diagnoses, such as what I got, when the little doctor who barely looked at me ventured to pronounce a diagnosis without labs or any other additional tests: kidney infection. I don’t have to tell you that I did not follow his indications for antibiotics, and I ended up where I should have started, asking my doctor friend to accompany me to which she kindly agreed, to order blood tests so dengue fever infections could be ruled out and conclude with the same enigmatic little word “virus”.

“Stay home. Don’t go to hospitals unless absolutely necessary. Thank God you’re strong and you’re getting better. No one knows what and how many diseases we now have, and for seven months there is a dengue epidemic that hasn’t been declared nor will it ever be declared. The health system has collapsed, medical ethics is in the process of extinction, and the only hope is that all this too shall pass. Stay home, friend, and may God protect us so we can see how this will all end, because what we need to do, is survive it.”

My friend is a very wise doctor.

February 6 2012

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Sin evasion |

  • This blog is translated by Norma Whiting.
    You can help translate other Cuban bloggers by clicking here.

  • miriam_celaya

    Miriam Celaya

    Miriam is a Cuban from Havana, and she belongs to the generation whose lives have been torn between disillusionment and hope, whose members reached adulthood in the controversial year 1980.

    She has published collaborations in the digital magazine Encuentro en la Red, for which she created her pseudonym.

    Miriam started this blog under the pseudonym Eva García, but in her July 22, 2008 entry, she came out from “behind the mask” and posted her photo and name. Miriam can be reached at:
    sinevasion@desdecuba.com

  • Other languages



    .

  • Cuban Blogs Translated into English

    • All the blogs in one place: "Translating Cuba"
    • Bad Handwriting
    • Crossing the Barbed Wire
    • Desde Aqui / From Here
    • Dimas’s Blog
    • Generation Y
    • Hunger Strike
    • IndoCubans
    • IntraMuros (English)
    • Island Anchor
    • Iván's File Cabinet
    • KubaSepia (English)
    • Laritza's Laws
    • Octavo Cerco
    • Photos From Cuba
    • Post Revolution Mondays
    • Re-evolution90
    • Retazos / Fragments
    • Sin Evasion / Without Evasion
    • The Children Nobody Wanted
    • The Voice of El Morro
    • Through the Eye of the Needle
    • Travel Reports
    • Veritas (English)
    • Voices Behind the Bars
  • Twitter Updates

    • la vida es hermosa 10 years ago
  • Archives

    • January 2015 (1)
    • September 2014 (1)
    • August 2014 (1)
    • July 2014 (3)
    • May 2014 (1)
    • April 2014 (4)
    • March 2014 (1)
    • February 2014 (2)
    • January 2014 (2)
    • December 2013 (1)
    • November 2013 (3)
    • October 2013 (3)
    • September 2013 (3)
    • August 2013 (4)
    • July 2013 (4)
    • June 2013 (2)
    • May 2013 (1)
    • April 2013 (3)
    • March 2013 (3)
    • February 2013 (4)
    • January 2013 (7)
    • December 2012 (4)
    • November 2012 (4)
    • October 2012 (3)
    • September 2012 (5)
    • August 2012 (3)
    • July 2012 (5)
    • June 2012 (2)
    • May 2012 (5)
    • April 2012 (4)
    • March 2012 (5)
    • February 2012 (5)
    • January 2012 (3)
    • December 2011 (4)
    • November 2011 (5)
    • October 2011 (3)
    • September 2011 (8)
    • August 2011 (5)
    • July 2011 (5)
    • June 2011 (4)
    • May 2011 (9)
    • April 2011 (9)
    • March 2011 (5)
    • February 2011 (6)
    • January 2011 (6)
    • December 2010 (8)
    • November 2010 (8)
    • October 2010 (6)
    • September 2010 (7)
    • August 2010 (7)
    • July 2010 (4)
    • June 2010 (4)
    • May 2010 (6)
    • April 2010 (4)
    • March 2010 (5)
    • February 2010 (2)
    • January 2010 (8)
    • December 2009 (6)
    • November 2009 (8)
    • October 2009 (8)
    • September 2009 (10)
    • August 2009 (12)
    • July 2009 (9)
    • June 2009 (13)
    • May 2009 (8)
    • April 2009 (10)
    • March 2009 (3)
    • February 2009 (6)
    • January 2009 (9)
    • December 2008 (5)
    • November 2008 (5)
    • October 2008 (3)
    • September 2008 (5)
    • August 2008 (5)
    • July 2008 (3)
    • June 2008 (2)
    • May 2008 (4)
    • April 2008 (5)
    • March 2008 (1)
    • February 2008 (6)
    • January 2008 (3)
  • Hits starting Jan 2010

    • 26,407

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Sin Evasion / Without Evasion
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Sin Evasion / Without Evasion
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: