An elderly woman known as Lucy, a resident of the Los Ángeles neighborhood in San Miguel del Padrón, Havana, was transferred to a nursing home in the Jacomino area after a public complaint by her neighbor Alfonso Vera, who showcased her extreme abandonment in a video on Facebook.
Health authorities confirmed that if the management had been delayed by two more days, Luci would have died. The case came to light on Tuesday, May 5, when Vera published a video of more than two minutes in which the elderly woman appeared with severe pain, in poor condition, and surrounded by unsanitary conditions, including a bedbug infestation in her home.
Vera reported that state institutions had known about the case for a long time without taking action. "Some say one thing and others say another; the delegate made her effort, the social workers did too, as did those from the asylum, but the fact is that Mrs. Luci is dying due to bedbugs and the neglect of the public agencies involved," she wrote in the description of the original video.
Luci herself stated on camera that no one in her family could help her. "No one, no one," she replied when asked if she had any relatives. She also pointed out that institutions visited her without resolving anything: "I saw the doctor who was here the other day, writing, I don't know. The person from Social Services came too, another one came."
The pressure generated by Vera's publications and the efforts of the neighbors achieved what months of institutional visits could not: the relocation of Luci to the asylum located on Beltrán Avenue in Jacomino.
However, the transfer was carried out using a tricycle loaned by a neighbor, as there were no ambulances available. Vera pointed out the contradiction bitterly. "Despite a large Russian oil tanker arriving, there are no ambulances." In the video of the transfer, her voice can be heard documenting the scene: "They are taking our comrade Lucy away. There she is, sitting on a tricycle."
The case illustrates the collapse of the Cuban social assistance system, which faces an unprecedented structural crisis. Cuba has only 156 nursing homes and 12,697 beds for over 1.7 million registered retirees, and 51 municipalities have no services for the elderly.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Security itself acknowledged in March 2026 that "there are no resources to support vulnerable individuals," while pensions do not exceed 4,000 pesos per month, which is less than 10 dollars at the informal exchange rate.
The foreign press has highlighted the neglect of the elderly in Cuba, a phenomenon exacerbated by the mass emigration of over 1.4 million Cubans between 2019 and 2025, which has left 17.4% of seniors without close relatives to care for them.
Documented similar cases, such as that of an elderly man living at a bus stop in Mayabeque or an elderly man with an untreated hip fracture in a nursing home in Perico, confirm that the pattern of institutional neglect towards the elderly in Cuba is not exceptional but systemic.
Lucy arrived at the nursing home thanks to her neighbors. Without them, according to the health authorities themselves, she would not have made it.
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