Cuban Vaccine?

[gcman68]

Not sure how true this is but I did find it interesting. 

https://www.msn.com/en-au/lifestyle/wellbeing/cuba-leads-race-for-latin-american-coronavirus-vaccine/ar-BB1aWCAM

[Fuzz]

Injecting Havana Club is not going to work.

[helix]

I doubt they have the resources to create a Vaccine . More of the cure all interferon.

[Chas.Alpha]

1 hour ago, Fuzz said:

Injecting Havana Club is not going to work.

It’s worked for me so far... ?

[NickV]

Their healthcare is relatively good or at least that’s what I’ve read. Wouldn’t shock me if they lead the way in the region. 

[helix]

Healthcare , like most things national promoted by the Cuban Government a myth.  

[chris12381]

Just take some PPG.  ?

38 minutes ago, helix said:

Healthcare , like most things national promoted by the Cuban Government a myth.  

Healthcare is just like everything else in Cuba.  If you're a tourist, you get an all access pass to the best food, drinks, housing, transportation, etc. the island has to offer. 

[NSXCIGAR]

Cuban vaccine is called cigars. Always cures what ails me.

[vhampl03]

16 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Cuban vaccine is called cigars. Always cures what ails me.

This is wisdom

[Nino]

18 hours ago, NickV said:

Their healthcare is relatively good or at least that’s what I’ve read. Wouldn’t shock me if they lead the way in the region. 

Yep, I can see many swimming over from Florida to get a shot ... ?

[NSXCIGAR]

Let's see...every major pharmaceutical company in the west is spending tens of billions burning the midnight oil trying to get something out there but the MIT and Cal Tech vaccinologists are chumps compared to the University of Havana geniuses cooking up this thing in the kitchen of a squalid paladar. 

Whatever Cuba is spending on this "research" could probably buy a real vaccine for every citizen when it's ready.

 

[MrBirdman]

While I am very skeptical of any Cuban claims concerning vaccine development, the claims about their healthcare system are much more well founded. What sets of them apart from most Central and South American countries is the knowledge and training of their medical personnel. In fact medical workers have been one of Cuba’s more successful “exports” - at least it secured them cheaper Venezuelan oil for a while. 

That said, the quality of healthcare for the average Cuban is a whole other ball of wax. Just having the top doctors etc doesn’t mean you can get those services to all your citizens - e.g. US healthcare system. 

[PigFish]

Cuba has got their ducks in a row... no doubt!!!

 

[NSXCIGAR]

26 minutes ago, PigFish said:

Cuba has got their ducks in a row... no doubt!!!

Looks like 25 sticks--what are you complaining about? Impressive commitment to the customer.

[Nino]

11 hours ago, MrBirdman said:

While I am very skeptical of any Cuban claims concerning vaccine development, the claims about their healthcare system are much more well founded. What sets of them apart from most Central and South American countries is the knowledge and training of their medical personnel. In fact medical workers have been one of Cuba’s more successful “exports” - at least it secured them cheaper Venezuelan oil for a while. 

That said, the quality of healthcare for the average Cuban is a whole other ball of wax. Just having the top doctors etc doesn’t mean you can get those services to all your citizens - e.g. US healthcare system. 

Yep, you should be sceptical of any Cuban claims - like the 3 famous myths of free education, health-care and a free glass of milk for kids.

In Cuba they joke about the 3 famous Cuban failures of breakfast, lunch and dinner....

Otherwise we might see lines of desperate Americans in Key West trying to buy inner tubes and home-made rafts to flee to Cuba and its great system, medical and otherwise ...

Seriously now - while Cuba might have some good doctors, they mass produce doctors in-country ( local Cubans call those doctors "siete mesinos" or 7 months )  mostly for export as you say, selling them to other countries ** for huge profit for the Cuban gvmt. or for oil.

Of course in "blind" regions like some countries in Central & South America or Africa the "one eyed" will be king ...

Some countries have expelled Cuban doctors for political reasons like Brazil** while others like Mexico a few months ago because they proved to be no more than glorified nurses and unable to perform basic medical tasks while the Cuban gvmt. received 6,2 mio US$ for them ( keeping 75% of the amount ).

https://primerinforme.com/2020/06/16/invasion-de-medicos-cubanos-en-mexico-genera-rechazo-por-bajo-profesionalismo/

https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2020/06/09/el-gobierno-de-lopez-obrador-pago-usd-62-millones-a-medicos-cubanos-por-atencion-al-covid-19/

Some comments from Mexican doctors about the Cuban doctors : This Mex. doctor asks himself every day what the Cubans do and says they are basically "family doctors" or "nurses".

Un médico que labora en el Hospital General Balbuena mencionó para El Universal que se pregunta todos los días qué hacen. “La verdad es que nada más están aquí para tomar muestra. ¿Asesoría? Pues no sabemos de qué tipo, porque son médicos familiares de primer contacto, son sanitaristas”. Ellos están en el área de Consulta Externa.

This one says they are good to cover epidemics but have no experience in intensive care.

“La verdad es que son médicos que no están en el frente de batalla, son muy buenos para cubrir cercos epidemiológicos pero no tienen experiencia en el manejo de terapia intensiva, por ejemplo, no ven casos COVID-19, al menos en este hospital”.

Argentina has also refused Cuban docs in its fight against Covid 19 :

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/en-espanol/noticias/story/2020-04-21/argentina-rechaza-medicos-cubanos-para-lucha-contra-covid-19

 

Great irony that Cuba making such fanfare about its health system had to fly in the chief surgeon & staff & equipment of a public Madrid hospital to treat  its maximo lider Fidel for diverticulitis.

https://elpais.com/internacional/2006/12/24/actualidad/1166914806_850215.html

A Spanish surgeon treats Fidel Castro
José Luis García Sabrido, head of surgery at Gregorio Marañón, traveled to Cuba on Thursday, according to 'El Periódico'

Madrid - 24 Dec 2006 - 13:12 CET

A Spanish surgeon has traveled to Havana to treat Cuban President Fidel Castro. According to El Periódico de Cataluña , José Luis García Sabrido, head of the Surgery service of the public hospital Gregorio Marañón in Madrid, flew to the island last Thursday on a plane chartered by the Government of Cuba and which was also provided with the latest generation clinical material that Havana health services do not have.

The health services that serve the Cuban president know the curriculum of García Sabrido, since he gave a masterful lesson at the IX Cuban Congress of Surgery, which was held between November 7 and 10 at the Havana Convention Center .

 

** A US court has just accepted the lawsuit against the UN and the Pan American Health Organization of Cuban doctors for slavery and human trafficking - read this interesting WSJ editorial :

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-n-and-human-trafficking-11580071750

The U.N. and Human Trafficking
Four victims of Cuba’s medical missions sue the Pan American Health Organization.

Jan. 26, 2020 3:49 pm ET

Cuba’s military dictatorship sent Ramona Matos Rodriguez to Brazil in September 2013 as part of its foreign “medical missions.” Posted to the Amazonian state of Pará, Dr. Matos Rodriguez was to be paid by Brazil for her services. But she says she received only about 10% of the salary Brazil allocated.

In a 2018 class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in Miami, Dr. Matos Rodriguez and three other Cuban doctors claim that 85% of the money went to Havana via the Pan American Health Organization, or PAHO, which acted as the go-between. By gaining PAHO’s cooperation, Brazil’s then-President Dilma Rousseff was able to conceal the illegal arrangement from the Brazilian Congress, other federal institutions and the international community, the suit alleges.

PAHO is a United Nations outfit, and member countries pay its annual budget, with the U.S. providing more than half. But the lawsuit claims that in its secret agreement with Cuba, the organization was also taking a 5% cut of the doctors’ salaries as they passed through Washington.

Dr. Matos Rodriguez lived a life of poverty in Brazil, and she couldn’t leave. She had effectively been sold into slavery by her own government. She had a 6 p.m. curfew and a “minder.” She was forbidden to move about socially in her free time. Her family in Cuba wasn’t allowed to visit, and she could go home only once a year.

The story of how Brazil, Cuba and PAHO allegedly conspired to traffic Cuban medical professionals may never have come to light if Dr. Matos Rodriguez hadn’t made a dramatic escape to Brasília in January 2014.

 

[Nino]

15 hours ago, MrBirdman said:

In fact medical workers have been one of Cuba’s more successful “exports” - at least it secured them cheaper Venezuelan oil for a while.

As it happens, a good and serious independent Cuban on-line newspaper published this interview with an "exported" Cuban doctor today - Translation by Google :

"I got tired of being a good slave and bowing my head", confesses a Cuban doctor
14ymedio, Havana | November 13, 2020
 

https://www.14ymedio.com/entrevista/esclavo-doblar-confiesa-medico-cubano_0_2984701506.html

At 45, Juan (not his real name) is one of those professionals who went to Brazil to work at Mais Médicos, a cooperation program that has been denounced in a US court for covering up a "human trafficking network" for the benefit of the Government of Cuba.

In 2014, Juan was sent to a municipality in the state of Minas Gerais, when there were more than 10,000 Cubans deployed in Brazil, and he returned to the island three years later.

"I got tired of being a good slave and bowing my head," says this specialist in Comprehensive General Medicine and Otorhinolaryngology, who now works in a hospital in Havana. He is afraid of reprisals, but has decided to denounce the precarious situation that he and his medical colleagues are experiencing in Cuba.

Faced with the official discourse, which presumes to be a "health power", this doctor's testimony reveals the reality of the sector on the island. Miserable wages, permanent shortage of equipment and medicines, guards who are called "volunteers" but who they are forced with coercion and also are not paid or international missions that seem more like forced labor, are some of their complaints.

Question. It is known that despite the exploitation suffered at the hands of the Cuban State, many workers in the health sector see an opportunity in international missions. What leads these people to this conformity?
Reply. Take it or leave it and there is no other option. Although the Public Health salary is relatively high compared to other sectors, it is barely enough to eat. A little chicken, cooking oil, some croquettes, a piece of ham ..., but not enough to buy pants and a pair of shoes in the same month.

Before going on my missions, I was grounded. I lived in the province, in my grandparents' house, where not even the bed where I slept was mine. Now, thanks to the sacrifice of the mission, I was able to buy this little house in Havana, which is modest, but it is mine, and I have my family with me.

This is the only country in Latin America and probably the world where a doctor does not earn what he should earn. In Brazil, the doctor who earns the least receives the equivalent of about $ 3,500 and here the one who earns the most what he receives is the equivalent of 70 CUC, which is a currency that is increasingly devalued.

So going on a mission is a blessing.

Q. Before going to Brazil, you were in Venezuela.
A. I was there less than a year. There was a shortage of medicines and conditions were not good. There were houses with 18 or 20 Cubans, and many slept in bunk beds placed in the kitchen. The salary was a mystery. Only "those from above" knew how much the Venezuelan government paid to Cuba for each doctor. They didn't even want to sell us phone lines to Cubans. In 2014 you had to go to the store accompanied by a Venezuelan to get a computer sold. Venezuelans had what they call a "basket-ticket", a checkbook to pay in stores, but we Cubans had none of that.

Q. And under those conditions, was it still advantageous to fulfill the mission instead of staying in Cuba?
R. For a Cuban, any place is better than this country, which is on the ground.

Q. How were the relations of the Cuban collaborators with whom they made the decision to leave the mission?
A. At the beginning it was very hard. It was strictly forbidden to have relations with those considered "deserters", especially with those who had not been able to leave that country and were staying with friends, or who had found a partner. As politics changed, attempts were made to "win back" those doctors who were still in Venezuela. They were no longer branded as deserters but as colleagues who had made a mistake. Some rejoined.

When the call to go to Brazil came, Venezuela was at a critical stage. The bolivar was worth nothing, and we couldn't even buy potatoes, apples or onions, because they were so expensive. To feed myself I had to rape with the hospital cook.

Anyone who did not have "something personal" that tied him to Venezuela wanted to go to Brazil.

Q. Brazil as paradise.
A. The working conditions in Brazil were magnificent. The Brazilians were very respectful of us and we had an office with everything we needed: stethoscope, sphygmomanometer (to measure blood pressure), recipe book, disinfectant, gloves, needle, vaccines, medicines ...

The working hours were eight hours from Monday to Friday, but we had one day to study. At the same time, we were doing a master's degree in primary care, compulsory for everyone. We had to discuss our thesis in Portuguese.

From the point of view of resources, the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) is first class. Patients made an appointment for a consultation and received free medications.

For example, the janitor who worked in the building where I lived broke his femur and humerus in an accident, and the SUS paid for all the treatment. The Brazilian health system has nothing to envy the Cuban, on the contrary.

Q. Did you have difficulties when facing technologies that you did not know in Cuba?
A. In the place where I was there was developed technology, but the differences were understandable.

Q. What can you say about the salary issue, comparing it with Brazilian doctors?
A. The salary of a Brazilian family doctor, depending on where he was working, ranged from 7,000 to 10,000 reais (about $ 4,166). I signed a form where it was written that I earned 10,000 reais, but actually received only 2,933 reais, less than 30 percent of what appears in the contract.

Now there is a war in Cuba against intermediaries who buy deficit products and resell them at a higher price. This activity is described as immoral and abusive, but I ask myself: what is the Cuban State if not an intermediary between the Brazilian State that hires our services, and us, who are working there?

I remember when there was a devaluation of the Brazilian currency and consequently it was decided to pay us 1,500 reais more, but we saw nothing of the increase. We keep getting the same. The increase was left to the intermediary.

Q. Parallel to what you received from the Brazilians in Cuba, your family continued to receive your salary as a doctor, is that correct?
A. At the beginning our salary in Cuba was 575 pesos, then they increased it to 1,300, which was deposited in a bank account to which my wife had access.

To the doctors who went to the first stage of the mission in Brazil, the Government put 600 CUC in the bank every month, and instead of receiving the 2,933 reais (corresponding to the change at that time), the doctor only received in Brazil just under 1,000 reais. But the problem is that those 600 CUC deposited each month could only be collected at the end of the mission and return to Cuba. He who "deserted" lost everything.

This was revealed when a Cuban doctor [Ramona Matos] appeared before the Brazilian Parliament to denounce that Cuban doctors were paying him the equivalent of the minimum wage of a Brazilian worker.

From that moment, we began to receive 2,933, but the 600 CUC per month were no longer deposited in Cuba. Thus, we began to send our families the money that we received in euros in Brazil and arrived in CUC to Cuba.

Q. And what were the expenses that you had to face in Brazil?
R. I have to admit that the Brazilians were very good to us. They paid us 700 reais for food, apart from the 2,933, and if you didn't have transportation they paid you the bus costs. I lived in an apartment paid for by the Brazilian government including gas and electricity. If we had had to pay for all that, we would not have been able to send anything to the family.

Q. But in Brazil there were also what the Cuban government calls "deserters."
R. Of the 30 doctors who made up the group, half left the mission.

Q. And did it ever cross your mind?
R. That is an idea that goes through the head of all Cubans who are outside the island. In my case I did not take that step because I really like medicine and I evaluated that it would be very difficult for me to continue in that profession in United States. On the other hand, I have my family here. In these times, if I had the same opportunity, I don't know how I would react. This has gotten so bad ... There is no respect for the opinion of the people, there is no freedom at all, the few hopes that some of us had with the new Constitution vanished because at the end of the day it is the same as the previous one. .. There is no hope of anything.

Q. Are you an exception or do the rest of your colleagues share your way of thinking?
R. People are afraid and do not express themselves, but I think I am not in the minority. A colleague told me the other day that she was already jaded, tired of being on duty 24 hours every three days, and that is something very shared. Most Cuban doctors are humanitarian and professional, but we are reaching exhaustion. It is hard to be in charge of an office without resources, without medications for chronic patients, without antibiotics, without solutions in laboratories or a trocar to channel a vein. The guards don't pay us either. They say they are voluntary, but if you don't, they leave you out. How much more time does it take for the situation to improve?

[MrBirdman]

@nino Sounds like the doctors were treated like valuable commodities rather than people - sadly not surprising.

[PigFish]

6 hours ago, nino said:

Yep, you should be sceptical of any Cuban claims - like the 3 famous myths of free education, health-care and a free glass of milk for kids.

 

In Cuba they joke about the 3 famous Cuban failures of breakfast, lunch and dinner....

Otherwise we might see lines of desperate Americans in Key West trying to buy inner tubes and home-made rafts to flee to Cuba and its great system, medical and otherwise ...

Seriously now - while Cuba might have some good doctors, they mass produce doctors in-country ( local Cubans call those doctors "siete mesinos" or 7 months )  mostly for export as you say, selling them to other countries ** for huge profit for the Cuban gvmt. or for oil.

Of course in "blind" regions like some countries in Central & South America or Africa the "one eyed" will be king ...

 

Some countries have expelled Cuban doctors for political reasons like Brazil** while others like Mexico a few months ago because they proved to be no more than glorified nurses and unable to perform basic medical tasks while the Cuban gvmt. received 6,2 mio US$ for them ( keeping 75% of the amount ).

https://primerinforme.com/2020/06/16/invasion-de-medicos-cubanos-en-mexico-genera-rechazo-por-bajo-profesionalismo/

https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2020/06/09/el-gobierno-de-lopez-obrador-pago-usd-62-millones-a-medicos-cubanos-por-atencion-al-covid-19/

Some comments from Mexican doctors about the Cuban doctors : This Mex. doctor asks himself every day what the Cubans do and says they are basically "family doctors" or "nurses".

Un médico que labora en el Hospital General Balbuena mencionó para El Universal que se pregunta todos los días qué hacen. “La verdad es que nada más están aquí para tomar muestra. ¿Asesoría? Pues no sabemos de qué tipo, porque son médicos familiares de primer contacto, son sanitaristas”. Ellos están en el área de Consulta Externa.

This one says they are good to cover epidemics but have no experience in intensive care.

“La verdad es que son médicos que no están en el frente de batalla, son muy buenos para cubrir cercos epidemiológicos pero no tienen experiencia en el manejo de terapia intensiva, por ejemplo, no ven casos COVID-19, al menos en este hospital”.

 

Argentina has also refused Cuban docs in its fight against Covid 19 :

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/en-espanol/noticias/story/2020-04-21/argentina-rechaza-medicos-cubanos-para-lucha-contra-covid-19

 

Great irony that Cuba making such fanfare about its health system had to fly in the chief surgeon & staff & equipment of a public Madrid hospital to treat  its maximo lider Fidel for diverticulitis.

https://elpais.com/internacional/2006/12/24/actualidad/1166914806_850215.html

A Spanish surgeon treats Fidel Castro
José Luis García Sabrido, head of surgery at Gregorio Marañón, traveled to Cuba on Thursday, according to 'El Periódico'

Madrid - 24 Dec 2006 - 13:12 CET

 

A Spanish surgeon has traveled to Havana to treat Cuban President Fidel Castro. According to El Periódico de Cataluña , José Luis García Sabrido, head of the Surgery service of the public hospital Gregorio Marañón in Madrid, flew to the island last Thursday on a plane chartered by the Government of Cuba and which was also provided with the latest generation clinical material that Havana health services do not have.

The health services that serve the Cuban president know the curriculum of García Sabrido, since he gave a masterful lesson at the IX Cuban Congress of Surgery, which was held between November 7 and 10 at the Havana Convention Center .

 

 

** A US court has just accepted the lawsuit against the UN and the Pan American Health Organization of Cuban doctors for slavery and human trafficking - read this interesting WSJ editorial :

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-n-and-human-trafficking-11580071750

The U.N. and Human Trafficking
Four victims of Cuba’s medical missions sue the Pan American Health Organization.

 

Jan. 26, 2020 3:49 pm ET

 

Cuba’s military dictatorship sent Ramona Matos Rodriguez to Brazil in September 2013 as part of its foreign “medical missions.” Posted to the Amazonian state of Pará, Dr. Matos Rodriguez was to be paid by Brazil for her services. But she says she received only about 10% of the salary Brazil allocated.

 

In a 2018 class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in Miami, Dr. Matos Rodriguez and three other Cuban doctors claim that 85% of the money went to Havana via the Pan American Health Organization, or PAHO, which acted as the go-between. By gaining PAHO’s cooperation, Brazil’s then-President Dilma Rousseff was able to conceal the illegal arrangement from the Brazilian Congress, other federal institutions and the international community, the suit alleges.

 

PAHO is a United Nations outfit, and member countries pay its annual budget, with the U.S. providing more than half. But the lawsuit claims that in its secret agreement with Cuba, the organization was also taking a 5% cut of the doctors’ salaries as they passed through Washington.

 

Dr. Matos Rodriguez lived a life of poverty in Brazil, and she couldn’t leave. She had effectively been sold into slavery by her own government. She had a 6 p.m. curfew and a “minder.” She was forbidden to move about socially in her free time. Her family in Cuba wasn’t allowed to visit, and she could go home only once a year.

 

The story of how Brazil, Cuba and PAHO allegedly conspired to traffic Cuban medical professionals may never have come to light if Dr. Matos Rodriguez hadn’t made a dramatic escape to Brasília in January 2014.

 

 

Cuba. One small step for man, one large step for tyranny.

 

[helix]

as Nino explained ,Cuban doctors are mass produced and skills are mediocre . Great place to get a Med degree cheap and easy .

[MrBirdman]

On 11/14/2020 at 2:04 PM, helix said:

as Nino explained ,Cuban doctors are mass produced and skills are mediocre . Great place to get a Med degree cheap and easy .

I’m curious what you’re basing that assertion on. While their skills may not be up to snuff for a country like the US, they can’t be that bad given the health outcomes in the country. It’s doesn’t excuse Cuba’s regime to recognize that their development index on health is not far behind the US (and in a few areas ahead). I know that the government isn’t honest, but the UNDP knows this when they evaluate conditions - they perform index reports in countries with even more oppressive and dishonest regimes than Castro’s (yes, they do exist). 

Again, I am not standing up for Cuba’s authoritarian regime or saying it’s a socialist paradise. So please don’t say I am! ?

[Nino]

42 minutes ago, MrBirdman said:

I’m curious what you’re basing that assertion on.
 

I know you are not asking me, but to clarify : My experience comes from 15 years of travel to Cuba and many conversations with my Cuban friends - they are not very happy with their medical services, their hospitals, the lack of medicines etc. but they all are mostly healthy and well treated imho.

Doctors for Cubans are rare and mostly "family doctors" for simple run-of-the-mill stuff. Hospitals are crowded, dirty and lack basic things. You need to bring your own blankets & food among other things and bribes are needed to get treatment. Medicines, even basic stuff are also rare and costly.

My own experience having been treated twice at Cira Garcia, Havana's hospital for foreigners has been good. Good doctors that treated me well, antiquated but OK X-ray equipment, expensive medicines, the whole treatment was expensive but OK - my medical insurance refunded it. No complaints there, but no Cuban could afford it.

Then again, I was on a key ( Cayo Levisa ) and had a bad cough/bronchitis and one of the waiters was a doctor and gave me some antibiotics - I was happy to have some cure and he was happy to earn some on the side.

Your comment that Cuba's health index is better than average is certainly correct, but fact is that Cuban doctors are "exported" for cash by the gvmt. in what amounts to human trafficking.

 

[MrBirdman]

2 hours ago, nino said:

Your comment that Cuba's health index is better than average is certainly correct, but fact is that Cuban doctors are "exported" for cash by the gvmt. in what amounts to human trafficking

Exactly, and that why I wanted to be clear that good health outcomes don’t justify how they treat both their physicians and populace in general. And it’s important to bear in mind that most of their medical technology/pharmaceuticals were developed in the West. Excepting this miraculous vaccine, of course! ?

@nino you have much more firsthand knowledge of Cuban healthcare than I (hopefully) ever will, and I appreciate you sharing your experience. 
 

[NSXCIGAR]

4 hours ago, MrBirdman said:

good health outcomes

The assessment of "good health outcomes" is mainly based on infant mortality and life expectancy statistics in Cuba. This University of Oklahoma research explains the problems with this methodology in Cuba. An excerpt:

With 11.1% of GDP dedicated to health care and 0.8% of the population working as physicians, a substantial amount of resources is directed towards reducing infant mortality and increasing longevity. An economy with centralized economic planning by government like that of Cuba can force more resources into an industry than its population might desire in order to achieve improved outcomes in that industry at the expense of other goods and services the population might more highly desire. …Physicians are given health outcome targets to meet or face penalties. This provides incentives to manipulate data. Take Cuba’s much praised infant mortality rate for example. In most countries, the ratio of the numbers of neonatal deaths and late fetal deaths stay within a certain range of each other as they have many common causes and determinants. …Cuba, with a ratio of 6, was a clear outlier. This skewed ratio is evidence that physicians likely reclassified early neonatal deaths as late fetal deaths, thus deflating the infant mortality statistics and propping up life expectancy. Cuban doctors were re-categorizing neonatal deaths as late fetal deaths in order for doctors to meet government targets for infant mortality. …Physicians often perform abortions without clear consent of the mother, raising serious issues of medical ethics, when ultrasound reveals fetal abnormalities because ‘otherwise it might raise the infant mortality rate’. …The role of Cuban economic and political oppression in coercing ‘good’ health outcomes merits further study.

[MrBirdman]

3 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

The assessment of "good health outcomes" is mainly based on infant mortality and life expectancy statistics in Cuba.

Appreciate you bringing some in some research. A few thoughts, starting with the study. Scanning through the study, it's clear that the author's intent is not to categorically refute healthcare claims about Cuba but rather to raise some doubts about the system's high esteem. Bear in mind, this article was composed only a few years after an NHS study which lauded the system and identified several features which would benefit healthcare in the UK. The study's merits aside (I haven't read it and don't know enough about the NHS in any case), it's worth keeping the author's desire to raise critiques absent at that time.

Further, the author states upfront the she struggled to collect independent data, which is likely why some sections (including your excerpt) have a healthy dose (no pun) of conjecture or speculation. It may very well be correct, but the author understandably lacked the resources that UNDP and it's affiliates have to collect data. And, to be clear, the UNDP "does not take data directly from national statistical sources [i.e. the Cuban government]."{1} 

Lastly, while this by no mean discredits the work at all, it's worth noting the author's research was done as part of the Institute of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at Miami, which is generally critical of Cuba. That, to be clear, is good!. Nevertheless, one can easily find a number of equally credible studies which affirm that Cuba's healthcare system's outcomes are remarkably high for a country with its level of development. Again, as in my discussion with @nino, the outcomes neither fully account for, nor excuse, any human rights abuses which occur as part of their system. 

As for the HDI factors, the UNDP now only uses life expectancy because it's a much more reliable statistic (for reasons alluded to in your excerpt). Further, it's a reliable indicator of national health as well as the quality of care and access to healthcare.

It is also critical that claims about the success of Cuba's healthcare are not so much "absolute" but relative to it's prosperity. Cuba's life expectancy is more than 10 years above the global average, basically identical to the US as of 2019, despite a per-capita income well below average. Now, admittedly, it's relative success is less impressive now than it was 20 years ago, when Cuba was relatively even poorer. 

In sum, I am not here to stand up for Cuba's healthcare system - there's plenty of room to criticize. I am no apologist for Cuba's government. But I also don't think it's fair to $h1t on Cuba for one of the few things it actually does relatively well. I own a small healthcare business in the US, and approach this topic as someone who has lived the issues with our healthcare system. It is incredibly wasteful, expensive, and structured to preempt real competition in favor of the biggest players. We can't keep ignoring the fact that many countries, including Cuba, get similar - even better - outcomes despite spending pennies on the dollar. 

Now speaking of work, that's what I should've been doing while writing this, but I hope it proves interesting enough to warrant the detour! 

B. Birdman

 

[NSXCIGAR]

46 minutes ago, MrBirdman said:

Nevertheless, one can easily find a number of equally credible studies which affirm that Cuba's healthcare system's outcomes are remarkably high for a country with its level of development.

True, but if the researchers weren't able to get good data, no one else can either. As far as the UNDP not getting data from the government, even if they got the data from the providers the books would probably have already been cooked in anticipation of handing that data to the government. As the article above points out, the government has cleverly been able to set up a situation where they're probably not the ones manipulating data. The incentives set up for providers and hospitals, etc. result in the data being manipulated at the points of care. In other words, you can't trust any data coming out of Cuba.

The bottom line is that for the amount of money they spend, the doctors they produce and the sacrifices the people are forced to make the health care system is, on it's best day, no better than the average western country. What little equipment and technology they have they get from the west. And they hold up this system as a large justification for the entire regime. 

Also, don't forget the issues that aren't reflected in these statistics like people suffering from non-fatal chronic illnesses for years with pain. And keep in mind while the Cubans eat less than us, the quality of their diet is substantially better--no processed foods, no high fructose corn syrup, no MSG. We have far more problems related to diabetes, obesity and heart disease than they do.