Cuba: “She survived Covid, but not these viruses”
“supposedly less deadly”
In Havana’s funeral homes and cemeteries, dozens of grieving families ask: What did they die of?
HAVANA TIMES – In recent days, Havana’s cemeteries and funeral homes have been experiencing an unusual and constant level of activity. Funeral cars and Etecsa vans enter and leave without pause, while the reception area and the chapel at Colón —the capital’s most important necropolis— remain packed. The same situation is unfolding in the cemeteries of Guanabacoa and Regla, as well as in the funeral homes in those municipalities and the one at Calzada and K, in El Vedado.
“At first it seemed like a cold, but then everything got worse in a matter of days,” recalls Maritza, 38, speaking of the illness that took her 89-year-old grandmother, who was diabetic. “Everyone in the family got infected. She started retaining fluids, swelling up, and losing her appetite. The medical certificate says she died of a heart attack, but we all knew the virus precipitated her death. There’s no treatment, no plan, and nothing could be done,” she told 14ymedio.
In the past week, the dengue and chikungunya epidemic is filling intensive care wards, especially with people who were already suffering from other illnesses.
“We record the organ that failed, not the infection. But it’s clear that viruses like dengue or chikungunya worsen clinical conditions and bring on deaths more quickly,” confirms a doctor at La Benefica hospital, who notes that the elderly are among the hardest hit.
Funeral services reflect the severity of the public health crisis the country is facing. “There are days when the funeral cars can’t keep up and every room is full. Families keep asking: ‘Did they die from the virus?’” says a worker at the Guanabacoa funeral home, describing the saturation they face daily. “I can’t tell you what people are dying of, because that doesn’t appear anywhere, but I can tell you what the relatives say, and I can assure you that most of the people arriving here are dying from complications with the virus.”
Funeral services function as an unfiltered mirror of the structural crisis facing the country. / 14ymedio
“I also can’t give you an exact number,” he adds, “but there are days when between 10 and 20 people are dying, and that isn’t normal —or at least it wasn’t a few months ago. And of course the families are upset. Many people would be alive today were it not for these viruses.”
Beyond the numbers, funeral services operate as an unfiltered reflection of the structural crisis the country is facing. While solutions are nowhere in sight and silence predominates, in cemeteries and funeral homes the reality cannot be covered up. The overcrowding, the families’ grief, and the lack of resources reveal a collapse in the city unlike anything seen since the most critical moments of the Covid pandemic five years ago.
“I work as a night watchman near the cemetery, and almost every morning after my shift I come here to visit my aunt, who died a month ago because of the virus. She couldn’t hang on.” Sitting next to the grave, Frank sums up the feeling that runs through so many in the city: “Every day I see families arriving in despair.
“My aunt died a month ago; at first it seemed like a simple cold, but within 48 hours her condition worsened. She survived Covid, but not these viruses that affect the elderly. I didn’t even take her to the hospital —what for? When I got sick a week earlier they didn’t give me anything. Just ‘drink fluids,’ ‘get rest.’ It’s hard to lose someone like that. She survived Covid, but not these supposedly less deadly viruses. And also because of negligence, because no one did anything for me. We’re alone, with no help.”
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
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