A video posted on Facebook shows the state of neglect and deterioration of the "Lidia Doce" Nursing Home in Bayamo, the capital of the Granma province, where the building appears to be abandoned and is being gradually dismantled.
"Now it is a forgotten place, abandoned, dilapidated, and each day it looks worse than the day before. They are dismantling it little by little; I don't know what will become of it, but let's hope it has a better future," describes the author of the clip, identified as "Robertico y su gozadera."
The 30-second video summarizes in images what the figures confirm: the collapse of the Cuban social assistance system in the face of its most vulnerable population.
Cuba is the most aged country in Latin America, with 25.7% of its population over 60 years old by the end of 2024, equivalent to more than two million people.
However, the State only has 156 nursing homes and 12,697 beds available for the entire national territory, and 51 municipalities lack any services for elderly care.
The situation is so critical that the Ministry of Labor and Social Security itself admitted in March 2026 that "there are no resources to care for vulnerable people."
A survey by ASIC of 506 retirees in five provinces revealed that 98.8% feel institutional abandonment, while 99% claim their pension does not cover basic needs for food, housing, and medication.
The poverty and abandonment define old age in Cuba, where the minimum pension was raised to 4,000 Cuban pesos in August 2025, equivalent to less than 10 dollars at the informal exchange rate.
Mass emigration exacerbates the situation: over 1.4 million Cubans have left the island since 2020, leaving 17.4% of the elderly without close relatives to support them.
Approximately 15% of elderly people live alone, and around 89% of those over 70 face a high risk of isolation, according to data from the Center for Community Studies.
The foreign press has also highlighted the abandonment of the elderly in Cuba, in a context where the Cuban provinces are accumulating dependent elderly adults without institutional or family support networks.
The home is named after Lidia Esther Doce Sánchez, a revolutionary heroine born in Holguín in 1916 and murdered in Havana on September 17, 1958, after being captured by Batista's forces.
She acted as a key messenger between the Sierra Maestra and the urban clandestine leadership, transporting messages, medicines, and supplies for Che Guevara's column.
The fact that an institution bearing his name is now in ruins and in the process of being dismantled encapsulates, for many Cubans, the current state of the regime's social promises.
The Cuban Observatory of Citizen Auditing documented that 96.4% of retirees believe that nursing homes do not provide adequate conditions in terms of infrastructure, staff, or care, a figure that the deterioration of the Lidia Doce Home turns into a tangible reality.
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