Lucía Lynch, a transgender Cuban woman, publicly reported that the Military Hospital in Marianao refused to stitch an eight-stitch wound, claiming that there were no supplies to treat her.
Lucía's complaint took social media by storm with a viral video posted on Facebook. According to her account, she suffered a fall that caused injuries to her forehead and chin. The cuts were deep and required stitches, but the hospital staff informed her that they did not have the necessary materials and referred her to the 26 de Julio polyclinic without providing any treatment.
"I came to the Military Hospital and there is nothing to stitch an eight-point wound," Lucía reported in front of the cameras, also capturing a dumpster in the vicinity of the health center.
She assured that she is a nurse specialized in obstetrics and warned that time was working against her: "After four hours with the wound open, stitches can’t be applied, and I’m left with an ugly scar on my face that never had even a blemish."
The woman also revealed that she has HIV, a condition that increases the risk of complications from an open wound without care: "I am a patient with HIV AIDS," she expressed, visibly distressed by the complications that these open wounds could entail.
The video, posted by Britney García, sparked outrage on social media. "One thing is that there are no stitches, and another is that they weren't even capable of cleaning the wound. The Cuban medical service is disgusting," wrote one user.
Another person identified herself as a friend of Lucía and confirmed the discriminatory treatment of transgender individuals in Cuban health centers.
"It is true that the treatment we receive is poor. In the Dragon unit, I was ridiculed, humiliated in public, mistreated, and questioned by them, despite being the patient."
The case of Lucía is not an isolated incident. The Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, admitted before the National Assembly in July 2025 that the coverage of the essential medicines had dropped to 30%, describing an unprecedented structural crisis.
In April 2026, the deputy director of the maternal-infant area of the Lenin Hospital in Holguín reported a "very limited" availability of surgical sutures, and since 2022, doctors from the Provincial Hospital of Holguín had been reporting the use of expired sutures that caused infections and the reopening of wounds.
Lucía's status as an HIV patient adds a critical dimension to the case. According to the HIV Biobehavioral Survey by ONEI published in August 2025, the estimated prevalence of the virus among transgender women residing in Havana is 54.9%, the highest in the country and one of the highest in Latin America.
The National Strategic Plan for the control of STIs, HIV, and hepatitis 2024-2028 explicitly acknowledges that transgender individuals are "frequent victims of discrimination and stigma" that limit their access to health services.
As Britney García pointed out when posting the video: "A person's gender identity, social position, or beliefs should not matter in order to receive dignified medical care. Health cannot depend on prejudice, neglect, or lack of resources."
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