Miguel Díaz-Canel visited the Pediatric Teaching Hospital Juan Manuel Márquez, in the municipality of Marianao, Havana, to verify alleged advancements in information technology and telemedicine, in what has become a recurring pattern of presidential visits to selected hospitals while the Cuban healthcare system faces its worst crisis in decades.
He was accompanied by the Deputy Prime Minister Eduardo Martínez Díaz, the Minister of Communications Mayra Arevich Marín, and the First Deputy Minister of Public Health, Tania Margarita Hernández Cruz, as reported by Canal Caribe.
The hospital, portrayed by official media as the national pediatric headquarters and reference center, was the setting for a visit where Díaz-Canel learned about the use of telemedicine to integrate pediatric institutions across the country, the implementation of digital medical records, and the centralized management of medical imaging.
The ruler expressed satisfaction with the results and called for training all personnel.
"What I ask of you is to focus on training all the staff. This is the future of measurement, and it's within everyone's reach. All our professionals can be prepared in these technologies, which will provide us with better service quality and a more efficient use of resources," he said.
Also urged to connect all modules of the hospital process: "What we need to do now is finish everything from admission until the patient leaves, including pharmacy, all processes, to successfully connect all the modules and work in that direction, and that same experience is being transferred from pediatric center to pediatric center."
An alternate Cuba?
The official discourse contrasts with the documented reality of the sector.
The WHO has described the health situation in Cuba as deeply concerning, while the United Nations has activated a humanitarian emergency plan of 94.1 million dollars to address the collapse of the system.
The Juan Manuel Márquez Hospital itself has not been free from scandals: in 2023, reports emerged of cockroaches in beds that same year.
Meanwhile, according to official data, 96,387 patients are waiting for surgery, including 11,193 children, and hospitals are operating under power outages lasting up to 20 hours daily.
This is not the first time the president has undertaken this type of tour.
Last December, he visited the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital and the National Surgery Center in a similar manner.
The gap between the official narrative and the everyday experience of Cubans is summed up in a question that circulates on social media: Digital transformation, but if there isn't even duralgina in a hospital.
The official speech attributed the sector's challenges to the "economic suffocation policy of the U.S. government."
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