Havana’s Ameijeiras: Hospital or Wholesale Yard?
HAVANA TIMES — These days, Havana’s Ameijeiras Hospital looks like an enormous wholesale yard selling building materials. The employees of the company now repairing the building offer to sell people just about anything, from cement to wash basins – all new and top quality, according to the would-be vendors.
If anyone at the Ministry of Health one day begins to wonder why the repair of health centers proves so costly and dysfunctional, the answer can be found at Havana’s largest hospital, turned today into a veritable black market hub for building materials.
Just as near tobacco factories, one need only walk near the Ameijeiras to be showered with offers. You have to be blind – or in on the profits – not to see how these people pocket the money the country is devoting to improving public health.
Cover photo: radiococo.icrt.cu
The black market comprises that which is filched from the State whether it be cooking oil from a restaurant, cement from the municipality, or in this case wash hand basins from the hospital.
Where are the State Police – or did I hear the word corruption?
Trade of one kind or another makes the world go around!
This is soooo true. There’s a Cuban fast food restaurant just across the street from the hospital called Pollo Di Tu. Outside this restaurant is a virtual auction office where deals are actually transacted.