Cuban Surgeons Submit Grievances to Raul Castro

HAVANA TIMES — Members of the surgery department of Havana’s Calixto Garcia Hospital sent a letter to Cuban President Raul Castro this past summer demanding improvements in their working conditions.

The appeal, released this week by the online newsletter “Desde la Ceiba,” and signed by renowned doctors on the island, stated that “medical attention, especially surgical services at our center, is in a tremendously disastrous state.”

The alarmed doctors pointed to the “deplorable condition” of the hospital’s physical structure as one of the main difficulties, along with the “lack of basic resources for patient care” and “deterioration due to gross neglect.”

Although never officially confirmed, residents of the capital have commented that the Calixto Garcia Hospital had possessed an illegal private plastic surgery unit, whose members the authorities punished and disentitled once discovered.

Corrective actions have now been taken at the medical center, though the specific administrative and legal measures applied are unknown.