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A photograph shared on social media this Saturday shows the Perinatal Care Room of the Ana Betancourt de Mora Provincial University Gyneco-Obstetric Hospital in Camagüey, transformed into a parking area for electric motorcycles, which appears to be an organized business within the hospital premises.
The journalist José Luis Tan Estrada posted the image on X under the hashtag #TanteandoCuba, with a description that captures the magnitude of the situation: "When you think you've seen it all. The Perinatal Care Unit of the Maternal Hospital in Camagüey turned into a parking lot."
In the photograph, at least three motorcycles can be seen parked in the hallway of the clinic, including a blue bike and a Bucatti in black and red, set against the tiled hospital floor and the white tiled walls typical of a medical area.
What makes the accusation more serious is not just the disorder, but the hypothesis that the use of that space is linked to a deliberate business: someone within the hospital may be profiting from the parking of vehicles in a clinically critical area.
"While newborns and vulnerable patients need a sterile and protected area, motorcycles and vehicles enter a closed room, increasing the risk of infections," warned Tan Estrada.
A Perinatal Care Unit attends to newborns and mothers in the period immediately before and after childbirth and requires strict sterility conditions due to the high immunological vulnerability of its patients. Introducing motor vehicles into this space poses a direct risk to the most fragile lives in the healthcare system.
The affected hospital is the primary maternal and gynecological center in the province. Its Neonatology service was recognized at the time as one of the best in the country, with over 160 children ventilated in a year and a survival rate of 95.6%.
The incident occurs within the context of an accelerated decline in healthcare in Camagüey. In April, the Manuel Ascunce Domenech Provincial Hospital accumulated new complaints regarding flooded basements, trash, and rusty pipes near surgical areas.
That same month, hepatitis A cases in Camagüey raised alarms with between 30 and 40 daily positives according to citizen testimonies, while authorities denied the existence of a formal outbreak.
In February, the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, acknowledged to the AP agency that the Cuban healthcare system was "on the verge of collapse", admitting to a shortage of fuel for ambulances, blackouts in hospitals, and a lack of supplies.
That same month, the Manuel Ascunce Domenech Hospital acknowledged that it did not have norepinephrine —a first-line medication for septic shock— following the death of a 26-year-old woman.
The first coverage of the room turned into a parking lot documented the event as a demonstration of institutional chaos. Now, the hypothesis of an organized business adds a dimension of deliberate corruption: it is not the collapse that explains the motorcycles in the perinatal room, but the lucrative exploitation of a space that should be protecting lives.
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