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The Cuban doctor Miguel Ángel Ruano Sánchez held the regime responsible for the death of young José Jardiel Mejías, who passed away in Holguín after months of battling a facial osteosarcoma.
According to the specialist, the cancer the boy was suffering from had a high likelihood of being cured, but he was never treated as required by international medical protocol.
Ruano, a critic of the regime and advocate for professional ethics, published a message on social media stating that facial osteosarcoma is an illness with more than an 80% chance of recovery when the patient receives timely and specialized care.
"Facial osteosarcoma is a malignant tumor, but with a high cure rate anywhere in the world, especially if it concerns a young person," he wrote.
The doctor explained that the appropriate treatment involves neoadjuvant chemotherapy (before surgery) to reduce the tumor, extensive surgical resection, and subsequent adjuvant chemotherapy, procedures that—according to him—were never performed in Cuba.
"It was never properly intervened or as it should have been," he affirmed.
"The prognosis depends on achieving complete removal of the tumor through surgery and preventing metastasis with timely intervention, which was denied to the young man on the island," the doctor reported, stating that Jardiel died due to a lack of specialized care and medical resources.
Ruano was emphatic in stating that Jardiel's illness was curable: "With combined surgery and chemotherapy, the survival rate is between 60% and 85%, which is very high compared to other cancers. Strong and clear: his illness was curable, and they did not treat him."
In his message, the physician also lamented that in Cuba many health professionals find their medical decisions constrained by institutional pressures.
"A doctor who allows their hands, wisdom, and heart to be bound, for whatever reason, ceases to be a person worthy of respect," he warned.
José Jardiel Mejías, a young man from Mayarí and a former Greco-Roman wrestling athlete, became a symbol of resistance and hope during months of awareness raised on social media regarding his critical condition.
Activists like Norge Ernesto Díaz Blak (Noly Blak) and Nelson Álvarez (El Porfiao) publicly supported his case, denouncing medical negligence and state abandonment.
In November 2025, the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba (MINSAP) was compelled to issue an official statement in response to complaints on social media, although it did not provide details about specialized oncological treatment or the continuity of medical care.
Following his passing, the words of Dr. Miguel Ángel Ruano have reignited the debate over the deep health crisis on the island and the structural deficiencies faced by patients with serious illnesses.
His message concludes with a call for truth and medical justice: "Jardiel is another victim of the dictatorship. I prefer to remember him as what he was: a young man full of life and hope, who was denied the right to continue living."
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