The Cuban doctor Alexander Figueredo Izaguirre, an exile known for his reports on the healthcare system on the island, released a video on Tuesday that shows disturbing images from a Cuban hospital where, he claimed, trucks are being used to transport bodies due to the collapse of the funeral and healthcare systems.
"what you are about to see is not from 2021 [coronavirus pandemic], it is from 2025. Trucks returning to the hospitals. Bodies being taken out without diagnosis. Exhausted staff, lacking supplies, lacking medications, lacking words," wrote the doctor on his account on X (formerly Twitter), alongside the video he claims to have received from an internal source within the health system.
The images depict a somber scene in the courtyard of a hospital, where a cargo truck is parked next to a door from which several men emerge, loading what appears to be a coffin onto the bed of the vehicle. The number of individuals involved, as well as their movements, suggest the weight they are carrying.
According to Figueredo Izaguirre, the scene reflects the magnitude of the epidemic resurgence affecting Cuba, which the regime is trying to downplay.
The doctor himself accompanied the video with a strong denunciation: “Cuba is experiencing a brutal epidemic resurgence: dengue, chikungunya, Oropouche, influenza, and unknown respiratory viruses are overwhelming the hospitals. Patients arrive with fever, convulsions, or respiratory distress and within hours are dead... with no clear cause, no reagents, no antibiotics, no oxygen, no sufficient doctors.”
Covert health emergency
The testimony of Figueredo Izaguirre adds to the voices of activists, doctors, and other members of Cuban civil society who denounce the epidemiological and sanitary crisis in Cuba, exacerbated by the neglect of the authorities, hunger, shortages of medication, and the collapse of healthcare services.
Voices like that of activist Amelia Calzadilla, who on Monday called for a “humanitarian intervention” in Cuba, describing it as “a dictatorship that is letting its people die.”
Both Calzadilla and Figueredo Izaguirre agree that the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) has lost epidemiological control and that the government is hiding the real figures of infections and deaths.
“While the regime insists that everything is under control, hospitals are lacking hygiene, reagents, and transparency. There aren’t even enough hearses anymore. Once again the trucks. Once again the silence. Once again Cuba repeating its own healthcare hell.” the doctor expressed.
In this regard, Figueredo Izaguirre demanded three urgent measures: the declaration of a national health emergency, the immediate entry of international medical aid, and real epidemiological transparency.
"Cuba needs medicine, oxygen, and truth."
In his message, the doctor reported that many of the current deaths are "not recorded, not diagnosed, not explained."
According to their sources, hospitals lack reagents to confirm viruses, basic antibiotics, and sufficient medical staff due to the massive emigration and the exhaustion of the professionals who remain on the island.
"Every body that comes out of those trucks represents a life that could have been saved. A mother, a child, an elderly person, a doctor who fell without resources," he lamented.
The images have sparked a wave of outrage on social media, with Cuban users both inside and outside the country claiming that the morgues are overwhelmed and that the government is maintaining complete silence about the true extent of the outbreak.
Meanwhile, the population continues to face blackouts, shortages of medication, and overwhelmed hospitals, in a situation that many compare to moments during the COVID-19 pandemic, but without official data or international assistance.
"Cuba does not need slogans. Cuba needs medicine, oxygen, and truth," concluded the doctor.
Filed under:
