Cuban woman recovers after extraction of half a pound of tissue from her face.

The Cuban Ariannis Fuentes Robles has undergone a three-hour surgery at the Juan Paz Camejo hospital in the municipality of Sagua de Tánamo (Holguín), where half a pound of tissue from her face was removed.

The operation was successful, and the patient is recovering well after undergoing a complex surgery that is, in fact, the first of its kind performed by the maxillofacial surgeon Arelis Rabelo Castillo, as reported on Facebook by the journalist from the Cuban state radio Yeletnys Robles Reve.

This is the first of several surgeries that Ariannis Fuentes will have to undergo to recover her face.

Although this type of news usually mobilizes the regime's propaganda machinery, the local newspaper (www.ahora.cu) has not echoed what the journalist from Radio Ecos de Sagua calls "the conquest and essence of the revolution."

An internet user who claims to be Juan Carlos Romero Santos expressed excitement over the news of the surgery and explained that he is a neighbor of the patient and knows the hospital and the doctor who performed the procedure. Regarding the latter, he noted: "She comes from humble origins and additionally, she also lacks water, suffers from power outages, travels on foot, and is a victim of inflation. Even so, she is not lacking in love and dedication. My respect, Arelis."

The maxillofacial surgery of Ariannis Fuentes has taken place in a context of state neglect of public health, which continues to receive 14 times less investment than tourism, despite the fact that the country has not been able to recover visitor arrival numbers prior to the pandemic, during a sweet moment for the international tourism sector.

This year, other operations of similar complexity to that of Sagua de Tánamo have also been performed in Cuba. Last January, the doctors at the pediatric hospital in Havana successfully removed a malignant tumor from the right ovary of a 9-year-old girl.

According to the doctor who handled the case, initially, upon examining the minor, it was believed that the lump in her abdomen was due to menstruation, despite her not having bled. However, the situation worsened. "Apparently, the tumor grew to the point where there was not much space left inside the cavity, but with intense physical activity and the type of exercise (the girl) was doing while playing, it displaced forward, causing the abdominal wall to bulge." At the Pediatric hospital, they ruled out that it was her period (menstruation) and confirmed the tumor, but this was only known after a contrast CT scan was done. It was then that it was discovered that "it was a Grade II right ovarian teratoma," detailed Dr. Naila Ayrado, who handled the case.

According to what was explained, these tumors are almost always benign. They are made up of cells from the embryonic period, which is why they have hair, teeth, bones, cartilage, and even tissues from the eyes, brain, and liver, giving them an unpleasant appearance that gives rise to the name teratoma: 'tera' in Latin means monster and 'toma' means tumor.

Given the speed with which it was diagnosed and operated on, the tumor, despite being malignant, was encapsulated and there were no metastases, and the surgery was a complete success.

Also in February, doctors in Santa Clara removed a four-pound tumor from the chest of a 69-year-old patient, who recovered well after the surgery.

In this case, the risky operation was carried out by a multidisciplinary team from the Celestino Hernández Robau Oncology Hospital with the aim of removing a liposarcoma, an uncommon type of cancer that begins in fat cells. This was the second high-complexity thoracic surgery performed in Villa Clara to remove a round-cell liposarcoma from the right rib cage, as revealed on social media by the official reporter Belkis Vidal.

The patient, identified as Leoncio Hernández Quintero, has evolved favorably just six days post-surgery, without dyspnea, walking and eating orally, according to Vidal, citing Dr. Yoel Ramo Rodríguez, a thoracic surgery specialist who led the medical team that attended to the case.

In any case, these are exceptional cases as Cuban hospitals are going through their lowest hours due to the exodus of professionals; the export-exploitation of the best doctors on missions and the chronic shortage of medications. Proof of this, for example, is the case of the 7-year-old Cuban boy Jorge Esteban Reina Llerena, who is waiting to emigrate to the United States, where Nicklaus Children Hospital has offered to perform a bone marrow transplant that has not been practiced in Cuba for years due to a lack of conditions.