Young Cuban doctor reinvents himself as a waiter: "I would come home with not a penny in my pocket."

A Cuban doctor recounted how he decided to abandon his profession and reinvent himself as a waiter, since the salary he earned in the healthcare sector was not enough to make a living.

Ernesto Fajardo graduated from his career in 2022 and had no trouble accessing his dream specialty: Orthopedics. Despite how much he loved his job, he couldn't last a year.

The money was never enough for me. I would barely get paid and would give a percentage to my mom for the household expenses, and the rest I would use for a night out, and that was it. In short: I would spend one week with money and three without a penny in my wallet," he told Girón magazine.

The young man knew that in Cuba doctors have never earned well, but he never thought that with his salary he wouldn't even be able to achieve his most basic economic goals.

"I can't depend on my mother for the rest of my life. By the way, she is 55 years old and has three jobs. She spends entire early mornings in front of the computer, to support us. It wouldn't be fair to her if I continued in the profession at the expense of her exhaustion," he stressed.

Not even now that they raised the salary, which still doesn't fully compensate for the workload that doctors and specialists have in hospitals. Just imagine that from my year, there were 10 of us in Orthopedics, and now there are only four left. In fact, at the beginning, there were 20 of us residents from the four years, and now there are only eight in total," he explained.

Ernesto reported the situation at the Provincial Hospital Faustino Pérez, where both medical staff and sanitary supplies are scarce.

"Many times we assumed the shift with only two residents, accompanied at most by a specialist, when before there were three per shift," he recalled.

"At first, family members would take it out on you, as if the doctor were to blame for the shortages. Once, a companion almost got into a fight with me because he couldn't understand why there was no gauze at the hospital. It really struck me a lot in practice; I wasn't prepared to tell people to go out and buy supplies...", he pointed out.

Despite the stress and overload, the doctor really enjoyed his profession. That's why leaving it was a very difficult decision, although he doesn't regret it.

"The problem was that when I arrived home, I found myself with no money in my pocket, and I couldn't continue like that. Not even now, I insist, with the salary increase, in times when a carton of eggs costs 3,200 pesos. It's very tough..." he emphasized.