A video circulating on social media shows the outrage of a Cuban woman over the way her mother's body was transported to the morgue after passing away: under the sun on a rusty stretcher.
The images show the body covered by a sheet and lying on a very old, completely rusted stretcher, being transported under the scorching sun of the island.
The video does not clarify if the morgue belongs to a hospital, nor is it known in which province the incident occurred, although reports of serious problems in postmortem and funeral care have been multiplying throughout the country in recent months.
"And who is going to tell me not to film? I am going to upload it so that everyone can see what's going on here," the woman can be heard saying, in addition to engaging in an argument with the workers at the place, but without blaming them for the conditions in which the site was found.
"I know that as a worker you are not to blame, you are just following orders, but you have no right to tell me not to film because this is my mom and it is disrespectful," he added.
She died and now they are going to put her in a refrigerator as if she were chicken. It's a lack of respect, it's shameless, it's everything, everything, everything inhumane that can happen, is in Cuba," he added.
The woman looked into the place and said there was a "horrible stench," pointing to a group of old stretchers that the morgue employee clarified were "standing" because they were broken.
"If they do not respect us in life, how are they going to respect us after we are dead," concluded the accuser, pointing out that at least her mother has already gone to rest.
"When asked about the living and dying conditions in today's #Cuba, show them this video... The apathy and lack of humanity to which Cubans have been subjected for the past 65 years hurt a lot, this is criminal," wrote activist Jorge Magdiel Castro when sharing the footage.
If living is not easy in Cuba, what follows the death of a loved one is also not a simple task for the mourners.
In recent months, reports of shortages of coffins, hearses to transport the deceased, and even overwhelmed funeral homes have multiplied on social media. This is compounded by the increasing vandalism and neglect of cemeteries, which have also been overwhelmed and dismal for years.
In recent days, the plea of a young woman begging for help to have her husband's body transferred went viral. Her husband had passed away shortly before 2 in the morning on Wednesday at a hospital in Havana, and his remains were still waiting for a forensic science vehicle past 10 in the morning the next day, more than nine hours after his passing.
That same day, hundreds of kilometers away from Havana, another Cuban was reporting the lack of a coffin and transportation for a deceased family member, in this case in the town of La Estrella, in the municipality of Buey Arriba, Granma.
In the midst of the outrage and sadness generated by this type of complaints, the recurring conclusion is that peace cannot be found even in death in Cuba.
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