Miguel Díaz-Canel shared on Facebook a video of his visit to the Comandante Manuel Fajardo Clinical Surgical University Hospital in Havana, where he highlighted the progress of the "digital transformation" process that, he assured, will "improve the quality of medical services and the performance of health personnel."
The tour, conducted alongside officials from the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Communications, was part of a series of visits to institutions involved with the use of new technologies in the healthcare sector.
In the official note published by the Presidency of the Republic, journalist Alina Perera Robbio explained that the project "For a Digital Health" encompasses everything from primary to tertiary care and aims to extend the use of technology, artificial intelligence, and telemedicine within the Cuban healthcare system.
Thousands of Cubans reacted with anger, irony, and firsthand accounts to the video, which sparked an avalanche of comments on social media denouncing the deterioration of the healthcare system and criticizing the regime's propagandistic manipulation.
The responses quickly multiplied. "It's all a circus," wrote one user, while another quipped, "Miraculously, there was light." Among the most shared messages were complaints and sarcasm: "Visit Enrique Cabrera to see how the delivery rooms and the patients' ward are"; "Digital transformation, but if there's not even any Duralgin in a hospital, what are these people talking about?"; "Everything works when there's a visit, right?"; "Notify them of a visit and they'll paint and clean even the windows."
Several users described the actual conditions faced by patients and healthcare workers. “Go to the patients' bathrooms and ask yourself where the conditions are,” wrote one. “That hospital is falling apart,” noted another. “It's a shame, look at that hospital with no paint, what an imperialist country you call it is like this,” commented someone else.
Some messages turned into personal testimonies. "The worst hospital in the world, I say this from experience: my mom was admitted there, and just remembering that is painful." Another person wrote: "I hold that hospital accountable because due to their malpractice, I had to have a leg amputated, and the impunity remains alive." And someone else recounted: "When I fled that country just a few years ago, the hospital where I worked, by the way, was already a disgrace and we had nothing."
The tone of the comments ranged from irony to anger: “What’s the name of the work? Lie to me, I like it”; “Take advantage, there’s little thread left on the spool”; “Digital transformation and there’s never any connection”; “You should be ashamed,” they told him
There were also those who questioned the sincerity of the act: “You didn't go to the hospital, you just stayed in the theater… what a theater yours is!” “That's all staged, as always, everything's just borrowed for the visit.” “If you arrive unannounced, you face the reality.”
The contrast between the official version and the citizens' response is stark. While the Presidency spoke of "technological infrastructure" and "fully digital radiology systems," Cubans replied with phrases like "there's not even cotton" and "not even clean beds." One user summed up the general sentiment: "In Cuba, what is normal in any country is celebrated as a revolutionary achievement."
The episode takes place at a time when the regime itself has recognized the severity of the crisis in the capital. Recent reports acknowledge the collapse of transport, housing, water supply, and public health in Havana. At the same time, Díaz-Canel defended in the last plenary of the Communist Party that Cuba “surpasses the United States in social achievements”, despite the worsening of the national crisis, and appeared smiling during military maneuvers amidst a fuel shortage, as captured by official images from the weekend.
The contrast between the restored theater showcased by state television and the citizens' testimonies from the hospitals encapsulates the overall climate of discontent. “What a well-organized circus… why don’t they put the patients on display, so the world can see the needs of the entire country?” wrote one of the commentators.
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