After months of fuel and water shortages, Cubans are facing a dire public health crisis. Yamile Lage/AFP via Getty Images
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Health Organization reported that over 32,000 pregnant women faced limited access to diagnostics and limited amounts of the stable electricity needed to sustain neonatal units. Prenatal care faces delays because of the lack of everything from testing supplies to available facilities. And now, even once successful improvements in health indicators have fallen: a report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research measured an increase in infant mortality rates from 4.0 to 9.9 per 1,000 births between 2018 and 2025.
Source: Ananya Rupanagunta at VOX
St. Joseph University economics professor Milica Bookman wrote about medical tourism years ago. She had high hopes for Cuba’s medical system as a potential medical tourist destination but found it lacking when she examined it. A few years ago I read that many of the doctors Cuba trained and sent around the world as a goodwill gesture were trained to the standards of nurses in western countries. There is nothing wrong with that but when comparing doctors per capita it makes Cuba sound better than it is.