"Relax, everything is fine," that's what the pediatricians of Morón (Ciego de Ávila) used to tell Yuddiel Olivera, father of the girl Adriana Olivera Castillo, who has passed away in Cuba at three years old, allegedly due to medical negligence. The doctors failed to diagnose the girl's condition on time and provide effective treatment. Initially, they believed she had the Oropouche virus, but as things got worse, a doctor, seeing her in critical condition, ordered the girl's mother to remove her from oxygen and carry her in her arms to the intensive care unit. This decision, questioned by other medical staff, at the very least worsened the girl's situation. The parents have been informed that the case has been closed without anyone assuming responsibility.
The girl was admitted on Monday, July 1st, for vomiting and headaches, but before she was left at the hospital, she had been experiencing the same symptoms for nine days. "She didn't want to eat anything and whatever she ate, she would vomit. She was being treated by pediatrician Tamara Ruiz de Ávila, who told us she was a bit dehydrated, but it wasn't alarming." Then she asked the parents to do some tests, and everything came out fine. They didn't know what was wrong with the little girl, and this doctor only prescribed her Gravinol. "It relieved the vomiting for one day, but the next day she returned to the same," the father said in statements to CiberCuba.
"We spent about seven days taking her to the hospital, and they told us it was something viral; that it was very likely to be Oropouche, a virus transmitted by the sandfly," he points out.
Finally, faced with the increase in vomiting, the girl was admitted on July 1st. "The pediatricians at the Miscellanea ward of the Roberto Rodríguez Hospital in Ciego de Ávila tell us not to worry, that it's something normal, that it's viral, and they perform two punctures, both without success, and from there the girl started having more vomiting and headaches and complained of pain in her mouth, and the pediatricians kept saying that it was normal, that it was due to the puncture."
Also, the doctors asked the girl's parents to stay calm, behave well, and let them do their job. "Since we don't know, we trusted them," but on Thursday, July 4th, they decided to put her through a CT scan where they detected "a possible hydrocephalus" and decided that everything needed to be prepared to transfer her to the pediatric hospital in Camagüey on Monday, the 8th. "We didn't understand. If it's something in the brain and she's such a young girl, how can they wait so long? They said it wasn't serious, that there was a solution, that maybe she wouldn't need surgery, and that they would decide there."
On the evening of Thursday, July 4, the girl was "very sick" and according to her parents, she got worse. The pediatrician Yunier Vázquez, who was on duty, went up to the fourth floor, where she was admitted, to see her and told the parents that she was stable and gave her gravinol and duralgina, at one point. At seven in the morning on Friday, the girl showed symptoms of epileptic seizures and they decided to transfer her quickly to the intensive care unit even though the doctor kept saying "that it was part of the process."
But not quickly. We had to wait for them to prepare the paperwork to be able to transfer her to the intensive care unit. Then the doctor arrived and, as if nothing, took the oxygen away from the girl and gave it to the mother, saying, "Pick her up and follow me." When we got to the intensive care room, the girl was almost dead. She had aspirated liquid during that journey without assistance to breathe.
The intensive care doctors themselves commented to the parents that it was "crazy", how had they thought of moving the girl without the experience of the intensive care doctors.
We were outside waiting, and the girl lasted three days, fighting. She passed away on Monday, July 8, at 4:20 PM, supposedly from hydrocephalus caused by meningitis. We did not want to perform an autopsy," added the father.
The hospital director personally told the parents of the little girl that this was not going to end like this, that they were going to solve the case, but this Wednesday a acquaintance called them and told them that the case was already closed. "We, the family, have no complaints about the intensive care unit. There the doctors, all excellent. They fought with the girl all the time, keeping us informed, but in the Miscellaneous room, all the pediatricians, none of them are any good. Calm down, everything is fine, and look, in the end, the poor girl paid the consequences."
In the Miscellaneous room, insists the father, the doctors came to see the girl once a day. "They would tell you any nonsense and leave. It was horrible. Very poor work, especially from pediatrician Vázquez."
More and more Cubans are losing family members and denouncing irregularities or medical negligence that cost lives in Cuba. According to the president of the Free Cuban Medical Guild, Miguel Ángel Ruano, this is because the good doctors are on missions abroad, leaving recently graduated physicians on the island who have trouble diagnosing due to their limited experience.
The economist Pedro Monreal has recently denounced that Cuba continues to invest more in tourism development than in infrastructure for healthcare and education systems.
The Oropouche epidemic in Cuba is putting the health system to the test, which fared very poorly during the COVID crisis. By early July of this month, the virus had spread to 39 municipalities in 12 of the 15 provinces of the island, as reported by the Ministry of Public Health itself. Only Havana, Las Tunas, Pinar del Río, and the Isle of Youth were free from it at that time.
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