Landfills are proliferating throughout the city of Santiago de Cuba, with authorities taking no action to solve a problem that aggravates the already complex health situation marked by the onslaught of dengue and the Oropouche virus.
Multiple complaints from residents in the bustling city have come to light in recent hours, through communicator Yosmany Mayeta, who has published photographs on his digital platforms that evidence the serious situation.
Neighbors from the Altamira and Villalón neighborhoods reported the unsanitary conditions of their living areas due to the accumulation of waste in the streets, as the Community Services Company does not carry out the systematic collection of garbage as it should.
On 7th Street in Altamira, residents complained about a large garbage dump that has clogged the drains and caused water to stagnate.
"We are tired of the smell of dead animals and waste; no one cares about picking up the garbage, nor that the garbage dump is next to the daycare and the supermarket," revealed a young woman named Yuleydis.
According to the complainant, at the corner of 7th and 10th streets, “they throw dead animals, bags with pig intestines and any dead animal, solid waste from neighboring houses, and even branches and tree limbs that have been pruned by the neighbors.”
The young woman also expressed her concern about the blockage of the drainage and the stagnation of the water: “Mosquitoes are draining us, and I have complained to the Polyclinic about this epidemic hotspot and they don’t come. The puddle is just a few centimeters from the supermarket because the drains are clogged, and Comunales is the only one who can fix it, and dengue does kill; it seems they are waiting for there to be deaths,” she warned.
Less than two hours after this report, Community Services officials arrived and cleaned the area, Mayeta reported in another post.
However, people living on Comancié street sent another complaint about the dump that has formed next to a family doctor's office in that neighborhood and "request that it be cleared up promptly."
"It is inconceivable that if they enter a neighborhood to collect garbage, they do not pick up all the trash in the area, especially if it harms people and patients who are attending a medical appointment," emphasized Mayeta.
"These images of garbage around a medical post demonstrate that the Public Health System in Santiago de Cuba is a failed and decaying system," he stated.
A similar scenario is faced by the residents and people passing through 2nd Street, Callejón de Gata, between Hermano Ducase and Santa Rita, in the Villalón neighborhood, a couple of blocks away from the well-known pizzeria in San Agustín.
The person who sent the complaint stated that "it has been more than a month since Servicios Comunales collected the macro dump that affects the entire neighborhood," and despite the complaints made at the Ramón López Peña Polyclinic (the healthcare area where the dump is located), the health authorities have ignored the residents affected by the problem.
Mayeta called on the authorities of the government, public health, and community services, both in the city and the province, to resolve the problem immediately.
In one of his posts, he recommended that "they place plastic containers for Solid Waste Collection and garbage, with lids, protected, and maintain a constant collection schedule... to avoid micro landfills and the large pool of stagnant sewage."
He urged the directors of the polyclinics in each area to "take healthcare personnel out to the streets" so they can "gather information on the trash sites in their areas and have them collected as soon as possible."
"The authorities of Santiago de Cuba want to eradicate the epidemiological outbreaks that are greatly affecting the population, but it is the leaders who are causing this epidemic to continue spreading," warned the communicator.
He also asked his followers to post photos and videos on social media of the dumps in their neighborhoods this Thursday and Friday, so that authorities are prompted to collect the garbage that is contaminating the city.
"Let us rid ourselves of governmental indifference once and for all," he said, challenging the first secretary of the party in the province, Beatriz Johnson, and Governor Manuel Falcón to "fulfill their duty to lead well or, otherwise, to leave their public positions."
The numerous garbage dumps in all Cuban cities have contributed to the rapid proliferation of epidemics, such as dengue and Oropouche, so far this year.
In May, the alert sent to Mayeta by residents of Santiago de Cuba about people suffering from high fevers and other symptoms, the cause of which doctors could not determine, was the first warning sign regarding the presence of the Oropouche virus in Cuba.
It was not until days later that the authorities of the province acknowledged the emergence of an outbreak of an unknown virus that was under investigation. By the end of that month, the Ministry of Public Health announced the detection of Oropouche for the first time in the country.
Today the disease is widespread across Cuba, and the population is at high risk of contracting it, due to the authorities not having timely adopted measures to contain it or employing the necessary resources to eliminate the mosquitoes that transmit the virus.
After the arrival of the Oropouche, the epidemiological situation on the island became even more complicated due to the presence of dengue, a disease that is already endemic in Cuba.
What do you think?
COMMENTFiled under: