A video posted on Facebook shows how a woman in a wheelchair is carried down the stairs of the General Hospital of Cárdenas in Matanzas, because the elevator at the facility has been out of service for some time.
The images, shared by user Christian Arbolaez, show the stretcher bearers descending with the patient step by step, with evident effort and risk both for themselves and for the patient.
"In the Cárdenas hospital, there is one thing that never fails: the broken elevator. Everything else may vary, but not that," summarizes with bitter irony one of the comments under the post. This is not the first time this has happened: in January 2025, the same facility was without a functional elevator for at least 15 days, forcing staff to carry patients up the stairs on foot.
The situation repeated itself months later when elevators were out of service for over two weeks in May 2025, highlighting that the issue is not isolated, but rather structural and chronic.
This type of scene is a visible reflection of a deteriorating healthcare system. Nationally, the system has lost more than 7,100 hospital beds in recent years, while the infrastructure continues to deteriorate without any real solutions offered by the authorities.
The crisis is also affecting the workforce: according to recent data, the nursing staff dropped to 71,948 in 2024, a figure that reflects the exodus of health professionals leaving the country due to the precarious working conditions.
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