The crisis in Cuba's public services is so severe that the regime has deployed vehicles from the Telecommunications Company of Cuba S.A. (ETECSA) to perform emergency functions in other sectors, such as Health and Community Services.
Two videos shared by the Instagram profile Cubanos por el Mundo reveal how some ETECSA vehicles are used for purposes unrelated to their intended function, one as an improvised ambulance and another as a hearse.
In one of the videos, several people can be seen accompanying a patient in a medical center. A healthcare worker is transporting the patient on a stretcher to the rear door of a van with the ETECSA logo.
On the roof of the state vehicle, one can see the ladders of the telephone line technicians, which apparently could not be removed in time due to the urgency of fulfilling patient transportation services.
In another case, which occurred in the municipality of Cumanayagua, the same state company was an involuntary protagonist of an even more difficult scene. A van from ETECSA was transporting a coffin due to the lack of hearses.
The lack of means for transporting people is not new in Cuba. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous cases have been documented of sick individuals and the deceased being transported in animal-drawn carts, under worse conditions than in the 18th century, reflecting a Cuba increasingly mired in precariousness and misery.
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