APP GRATIS

Relatives of a Cuban woman who committed suicide in Havana denounce medical negligence

The young woman was the mother of a 3-year-old girl.

Gisell Villafranco © Facebook
Giselle Villafranco Photo © Facebook

Relatives of the young Cuban woman who committed suicide by jumping from the eighth floor of the Miguel Enríquez Hospital in Havana, denounced medical negligence in the care of the patient, who was supposedly being treated with an alternative medication.

Gisell Villafranco, 24, died on January 24 after jumping from the eighth floor of the old Benéfica, in the Luyanó municipality.

In statements toMartí News The victim's stepfather, José Francisco Santana Cruz, stated that the medical care he received and the system that governs Cuba are responsible for this fact.

He claims that the young woman suffered from uncontrolled schizophrenia and that the medication she was administered – amid the shortage of medicines on the island – was not appropriate to treat that condition.

According to him, this medication kept her sedated without improving her illness. "My daughter had uncontrolled schizophrenia and the medication they were giving her was not for that illness, that medication kept her sedated, but she did not get out of that step," he declared.

In response to these accusations, Dr. Judith Díaz Linares, part of the medical team at the Psychiatry ward, where Gisell was hospitalized on five occasions, denied the accusations about the medication to Martí Noticias. However, it does not provide additional details, stating that patient information is not disclosed over the phone.

Faced with the tragedy, the Villafranco family considered taking legal action to denounce what they perceive as medical negligence, but they assure that complaints in this regard will not be heard.

"We would like to go to the Council of State to complain, but I assure you that it will be in vain. Nothing is resolved here," said the stepfather.

On the other hand, the father of the deceased, Lázaro Villafranco, attributes the situation to the deficiencies of the political and social system in Cuba.

The man criticized the lack of medical care, the shortage of medicines, the poor hygiene of the hospitals.

"Here there is no good medical care, here there is no medicine, here there is no hygiene in the hospitals, the culprit of that is the system, everything is the system," he said.

"Because if there is no medical care, and the doctor who is going to treat you does not know when he gets home, if you have to eat or not, that doctor cannot keep his head in a high place to be able to give you medical attention. as it is," he said.

In addition, she denounced the delay of the Forensic Medicine staff in collecting her daughter's body from the hospital roof. The young woman died at 6:00 pm and the body was lifted after 11:00 at night, he explained.

Gisselle Villafranca Llerena was a nurse by profession, mother of a 3-year-old girl, and lived in San Francisco de Paula, in the Havana municipality of San Miguel del Padrón.

In mid-2023, the Cuban government ranked suicide as the tenth cause of death among Cubans in 2022, however the MINSAP report did not make public the figures for what it euphemistically described as “intentionally self-inflicted injuries.”

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