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A young person with autism in Cuba is suffering from a severe bacterial infection that is destroying his tissues and has been turned away by the Hospital del Rincón and other health centers without receiving treatment, according to an urgent complaint published on Facebook by Irma Lidia Broek.
The response the family received at every center they turned to was always the same: "There are no beds, no medicines, there's nothing to be done." Without antibiotics or treatments to halt the infection's progression, the young man has been "sent home to die."
The images accompanying the complaint show severe skin lesions on both legs: areas of dark and purplish discoloration consistent with necrosis or gangrene, blisters, scaly and ulcerated skin, and a dirty bandage with signs of blood.
On the face, the young man exhibits erythema, crusting, scaling, and his right eye is partially closed and inflamed, with lesions consistent with herpes zoster ophthalmicus or another serious infection.
The setting visible in the photographs is a modest room with a wooden floor and precarious conditions.
In the midst of pain, the young man himself pleaded with his sister: "Please, don’t let me die."
"His condition of autism makes him doubly vulnerable, and it is precisely when he needed protection the most that the State has turned its back on him in the most inhumane way," Broek wrote in his post.
The complaint calls for three immediate measures: medical evaluation by specialists, admission to a facility equipped to treat the infection, and provision of antibiotics and treatments to halt the gangrene.
The case arises in the context of the collapse of the Cuban healthcare system, the most severe in decades.
The Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, acknowledged before the National Assembly in 2025 that only 30% of the basic medicine supply is available. Hospitals are suffering from prolonged blackouts and lack essential supplies, and more than 96,000 surgeries have been postponed.
The crisis of medications in Cuban hospitals affects 80% of the population, who have encountered some level of difficulty in receiving healthcare, according to independent data. 39.4% of households rank the lack of medications among their three biggest issues.
People with autism face a double vulnerability in this context.
In April, Cuban families of individuals with autism sent an open letter to Díaz-Canel denouncing the systematic abandonment by the State, which institutionalizes autistic adults from the age of 16 or 18 without options for integration.
The regime responded with a visit from the ruler to an autism school for the press, an action deemed as propaganda with no answers to the specific demands of the families.
This is not the first documented case of abandonment of a person with autism by the Cuban system. In July 2022, a young blind and autistic man died in El Cotorro due to a lack of an ambulance to transport him.
In 2021, a mother reported the abandonment of her 23-year-old daughter with severe ASD and epilepsy by the health system. Last September, the Ministry of Education denied enrollment in a specialized center to a six-year-old child with moderate autism who had a medical certificate.
Meanwhile, the regime maintains the narrative of being a "medical power" and continues to send doctors abroad on international missions.
"A share can be the difference between having your cry heard by the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba or having helping hands arrive in time to save you," Broek concluded in his call for assistance.
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