Doctors at Cuba’s main pediatric cardiac hospital are facing heartbreaking dilemmas as a U.S.-imposed fuel blockade puts even more pressure on the island’s fragile health system: which children receive life-saving treatment first, and which must wait longer. During a visit by journalists to Havana’s William Soler pediatric cardiac center, mothers wearing medical masks stayed beside their children, seated or lying in dim hospital rooms where the only light came from the sun through the windows.
Cuban hospitals have struggled for years with shortages and aging equipment, but the situation has worsened since U.S. President Donald Trump imposed what amounts to a de facto oil blockade on the island in January. Herminia Palenzuela, a 79-year-old cardiologist, said the hospital, the only one of its kind in the country, must now make “very difficult” decisions.
Children with less severe cases are placed “at the end of the list, simply waiting” for resources, Palenzuela said. The hospital treats newborns, children and pregnant women whose babies have been diagnosed with critical heart defects. “Resources are always reserved for those types of patients because they are the ones who could die at any moment,” the specialist added, anguish visible on her face.
The cardiac center has 100 beds, but not all are in use because, doctors say, they must ration medical equipment and supplies for patients facing imminent life-threatening risk. “We would like to operate more, we would like to do more things, but the resources do not allow it,” added Palenzuela, a founder of the hospital, which opened in 1986.
With daily blackouts affecting Cubans across the island, including two nationwide outages just last week, the government has prioritized hospitals, which are equipped with generators to prevent them from going completely dark.
Palenzuela said she can only get to the cardiac center three times a week, while some of her colleagues walk several kilometers each day to reach work. A transportation system exists for healthcare workers, but it does not meet demand.
Dramatic levels
The center’s director, Eugenio Selmam, has spent decades dealing with shortages of medicines and equipment to treat childhood heart disease under the U.S. embargo that has been in place since 1962. “This is what we have been living through for decades,” Selmam said. But “now, with this new situation, it has reached dramatic levels.”
The crisis deepened after oil shipments from Venezuela were suspended following the overthrow of President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military operation on January 3. Yaima Sánchez, the mother of a nine-year-old boy with tachycardia, was lucky this time. The hospital had the Holter monitor, a portable device that records heart activity, that her son needs to track his condition.
“I come with faith that the doctors will care for me with whatever they have,” she said as she waited to be seen, because “sometimes the device is not there, or it has no charge because there are no batteries.” “So far we have been lucky, but you never know,” she added.
According to figures from the Health Ministry, more than 96,000 Cubans, including 11,000 children, are waiting for surgeries amid a reorganization of the health system due to the energy crisis.
What is right
On Wednesday, the cardiac center received a shipment of medicines, food and hygiene products from an international humanitarian aid convoy that brought 50 tons of supplies to Cuba by sea and air. “The situation is clearly difficult” and “that is why we are doing what is right: bringing aid,” said Italian activist Martina Steinwurzel, 41, who took part in delivering the donations.
As her colleagues and hospital workers arranged the aid in a room, Steinwurzel looked around and said: “This is a people that has resisted for many years and now is living under a level of siege it has never experienced in its history.” The U.N. coordinator in Cuba, Francisco Pichón, announced Wednesday that the United Nations had proposed a $94.1 million emergency plan for Cuba aimed at allowing fuel imports and keeping essential services operating to protect the most vulnerable population.
“If the current situation continues and the country’s fuel reserves run out, we fear a rapid deterioration, with the possible loss of lives,” Pichón warned.
