A Cuban woman named Mireya Jiménez posted a video on Facebook showing a 15-year-old teenager who clearly has mental health issues. During a blackout, he is in a state of extreme agitation inside a room, without access to medical care or neuropsychiatric treatment to control him.
In the images, Mireya can be heard trying to calm the young man by asking him not to jump around and to stay still. "Stay here in this room, don't go over there with your mom, because your mom is sick," she tells him, while the teenager moves uncontrollably.
Jiménez accompanied the video with a text that starkly denounces the situation: "Where is the Cuban healthcare system? That child is 15 years old and does not have medical attention, nor a treatment to control him; he is aggressive and breaks everything. Ilsa Ramos, his mother, has been unable to sleep for four days. This is a problem of neurology and psychiatry."
According to the complaint, the teenager's mother turns to the informal market to obtain medications at exorbitant prices, "and they don’t have any effect anyway."
Jiménez directly challenges the leader Miguel Díaz-Canel with a statement that summarizes the state of the Cuban healthcare system: "Look, Canel, this is how my people are, stop talking about medical power, this is criminal."
The case reflects a crisis of historical proportions regarding medications. In July 2025, the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, himself admitted that only between 30% and 32% of the essential medications were available in the country.
Patients with neuropsychiatric disorders are especially vulnerable: antipsychotics such as risperidone, mood stabilizers like lithium and valproate, and anticonvulsants have not reached Cuban pharmacies for months, while local production by BioCubaFarma barely meets 40% of the national demand for psychotropic medications.
Chronic blackouts further exacerbate the situation and the distress of these individuals. Cuba has been experiencing electrical generation deficits of around 2,000 MW for months, with outages of up to 20 hours a day that disrupt hospital services, damage the cold chain for medications, and cripple medical equipment.
The social psychologist Yadira Albet described in September 2025 an epidemic of mental health issues in Cuba resulting from power outages, uncertainty, and system collapse, with particularly serious effects on psychiatric patients who are no longer receiving treatment.
The cases of families publicly reporting a lack of attention have multiplied.
Last Tuesday, a baby girl who was a month and a half old passed away in the hospital Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in Bayamo due to the lack of the antibiotic Aztreonam. In February, a father in Santiago de Cuba had to buy dipyrone on the black market to reduce his daughter's fever while she was hospitalized at the Pediatric Hospital Sur.
Jiménez concluded his publication with a direct call: "My people need freedom."
Filed under: