A video shared on social media shows how a patient is transported to the Hospital Provincial Camilo Cienfuegos in Sancti Spíritus in a horse-drawn cart, an image that captures the collapse of the Cuban healthcare system.
The images, posted on Facebook by the user Omar Rensoli with the title "This is how they transport a sick person to the Provincial Hospital of Sancti Spíritus," garnered over 121,000 views, more than 3,300 reactions, and 524 comments within just a few hours.
"It hurts the soul to see what communism has done to Cuba," Rensoli wrote alongside the video.
In the images, someone can be heard pointing out that "the stretcher bearers are not there either, but the stretcher bearer has to be there," which shows that the problem is not limited to external transport but also extends to care within the hospital itself.
The media outlet Cantalo TV also broadcast the images and warned that sick individuals arrive at the provincial hospital in horse-drawn carriages, and that in some cases "even the deceased" are brought to the healthcare center in this manner.
The situation is neither new nor isolated. In August 2021, drivers in San Germán, Holguín, took on the responsibility of transporting sick individuals due to the lack of ambulances, with authorization from the provincial government itself. At that time, Holguín had only 57 operational ambulances when it needed 200. A month later, an elderly woman was transported in a wheelbarrow for the same reason.
Sancti Spíritus has accumulated years of similar complaints. In 2021, the collapse of the largest hospital in the province was publicly acknowledged during the peak of the pandemic, and in August 2022, the hospital in Trinidad operated without an intensivist or functional intensive care unit, with a broken console for over three months.
In 2026, the Cuban health crisis reached what the Pan American Health Organization described as a "unprecedented crisis": 385 damaged health facilities, widespread shortages of medications, reagents, and antibiotics, and blackouts of up to 20 hours a day that render X-ray, ultrasound, and tomography equipment inoperable.
The Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, acknowledged this year the necessity to restrict surgeries to urgent or emergency cases due to the energy crisis and lack of resources. El Nuevo Herald pointed out bluntly that in Cuba, "there is no transportation for patients to arrive."
The regime's attempts to alleviate the ambulance crisis have been insufficient and focused on Havana. In July 2025, the government added 15 new ambulances in the capital and announced the acquisition of 50 more. In December of that year, Russia donated three ambulances to Cuba. The provinces in the interior, such as Sancti Spíritus, remain excluded from these partial replacements.
While the regime announces figures and donations, sick Cubans continue arriving at the hospital in animal-drawn carts, in a scene that, as Rensoli wrote, "hurts the soul."
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