Article on Cuban Health System

[Ryan]

Comparing the Irish Health system to Cuba's. I think it's pretty good, especially considering we were all four sheets to the wind most of the time..

http://www.thepost.ie/agenda/a-cuban-prescription-57718.html

[mazolaman]

Thanks for posting this interesting article.

We're quick to slag off Cuba for what we perceive as inefficiencies,so it's good to recognise aspects of a system that works better ours,ie,their health system.

[harryleech]

Cheers Andy! A lot of rum was sweated out in Cuban hospitals, talking to understanding Cuban Doctors, nurses and patients to research the article, as you well know...

One of the panels from the piece didn't make it into the online article for some reason, I've posted it below if anyone is interested.

When Michael Moore included Cuba’s National Health Service in his 2007 documentary Sicko, he knew what it would do for the film’s profile – bringing sick 9/11 veterans to Havana for treatment they couldn’t afford in the United States was a promotional coup worthy of P.T. Barnum, and perhaps as cynical. Lauding the French system was bad enough, but promoting socialised medicine in communist Cuba was like a red flag to an ideologically opposed bull.

The film provoked a swift response in the United States, with numerous websites springing up to deride the standard of healthcare in Cuba. Some of the criticism was based in fact, but most was not. While it could be argued that the movie portrayed the Cuban system in an overly positive light, the same could be said of its portrayal of the public systems in Britain or France, neither of which is without their own problems.

One major criticism was that foreign patients such as the Americans featured in the movie receive superior treatment to Cuban patients and can jump the queue if they have insurance or hard cash. While this is true in many cases, the €50 million that Cuba raises from medical tourism each year is ploughed back into the National Healthcare System, which Cuban citizens avail of for free.

But when U.S. & U.K. news outlets reported in 2010 that, irony of ironies, Sicko was banned by the communist government in Cuba, Fox News in particular had a field day. According to a 2008 cable released by Wikileaks, an official based in the ‘US Special Interests Division’ in Havana told Washington that –

“Although the film’s intent is to discredit the U.S. healthcare system by highlighting the excellence of the Cuban system, the official said the regime knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.”

It was a fantastic story but it was too good to be true. When Sicko was first released in 2007 the Cuban Health Minister told Associated Press that "this documentary by a personality like Mr. Michael Moore helps promote the profoundly human principles of Cuban society." The movie debuted on Cuban television in April 2008 and the movie was shown in cinemas across the country thanks to a 35mm print that Moore sent to the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC) in Havana.

Moore quotes another secret U.S. document which claimed that "the disenchantment of the masses [in Cuba] has spread through all the provinces," and that "all of Oriente Province is seething with hate" for the Castro regime. There's a huge active underground rebellion, and "workers there readily give all the support they can," with everyone involved in "subtle sabotage" against the government. Morale is terrible throughout all the branches of the armed forces, and in the event of war the army "will not fight."

The cable is dated March 31 1961, just three weeks before the US backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs failed miserably. Cuba may be a communist dictatorship, but there is propaganda on both sides of the Florida Straits.

[mazolaman]

Yep,thanks for the addition,it sheds more light on the situation.