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The playwright Freddy Núñez Estenoz, founder and general director of the Teatro del Viento company, denounced on social media the profound health crisis that Cuba is experiencing, characterized by the collapse of health services, the lack of effective fumigation and the spread of dengue and chikungunya throughout the country.
In an extensive and heartbreaking message published on Facebook, Núñez Estenoz described Cuba as “a sick, abandoned, and dying country,” and stated that the current situation “resembles more neglect than blockade,” clearly referring to the official rhetoric of the regime, which blames the U.S. embargo for the health crisis.
"The health crisis we are experiencing today is more about neglect than BLOCKADE..., more about irresponsibility than BLOCKADE..., more about abandonment than BLOCKADE," wrote the artist, emphasizing that what the country is going through is a generalized indifference and not an external effect.
"We are a sick country."
The playwright recounted that his block was fumigated “after a long time,” but he criticized that the measure comes too late and merely serves to fulfill a statistic, while garbage accumulates less than 200 meters from his home, blocking access.
"All my neighbors have recently fallen ill with some arbovirus... no one is safe, we are all doomed to go through this agony," wrote Núñez Estenoz.
The artist also criticized the regime's Round Table dedicated to the issue of arboviruses, labeling it as "cosmetic and triumphalist," and accused the official media of downplaying the real seriousness of the crisis and the deaths caused by the outbreak.
"Where reality is omitted..., where the collective drama of a sick country is reduced to a statistic..., where deaths do not appear, because there are indeed dead and they are not few," he lamented.
A country in a health emergency
The statements from the theater director come at a time when Cuba is facing a health emergency, with tens of thousands of confirmed cases of chikungunya and dengue, as well as a sustained spread of the mosquito Aedes aegypti in almost all provinces, according to official reports from the Ministry of Public Health itself.
The country is on alert, with the provinces of Havana, Holguín, Matanzas, Camagüey, Cienfuegos, and Villa Clara being among the most affected. However, failures in fumigation, shortages of medications, and a lack of basic resources are exacerbating the crisis and fueling social discontent.
"The blockade does not apply in China, and the fumigation equipment is manufactured in China," Núñez Estenoz recalled, dismantling the government's arguments about the causes of the health collapse.
"We are a shipwrecked island."
The artist's message concludes with a powerful metaphor about the state of the country: "We are a sick country, sick in every way... helpless, tired, and agonizing. We are a shipwrecked island at the mercy of mosquitoes and other creatures that drain our blood... leaving us stiff, rigid, yet still lucid, at least lucid enough to face them head-on."
The words of Freddy Núñez Estenoz, beyond the cultural realm, reflect the frustration of a citizenry surrounded by garbage, mosquitoes, and state negligence, while the government continues to justify the crisis with the embargo and official media attempts to cover up the collapse with empty rhetoric and manipulated statistics.
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