A reel published this Saturday on Instagram by Dr. Fernando Sánchez, a Colombian physician currently undertaking a dermatology residency in Havana, sparked a social media frenzy among Cubans both on the island and abroad by showcasing a daily life of breakfasts with a “privileged view,” diverse meals, gym workouts, and outings in the Cuban capital.
The video, which gathered over 5,000 views and 629 'likes' in just a few hours, shows the doctor completing his rotation at the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital and at the International Clinic of the Placental Histotherapy Center "Dr. Carlos Manuel Miyares Cao."
Sánchez himself casually mentions that there was no electricity that day and he had to go up and down more than ten floors using the stairs, but he presents it as a minor anecdote.
At the end of the video, it reveals that it has its own electric generator: "When returning home, even though there was still no electricity, the view from the balcony made it all worthwhile."
The most emphatic reaction came from Dr. Lucio Enriquez Nodarse, a Cuban doctor who reposted the video on Facebook with a direct critique.
"What we Cubans have to endure, the little empathy and the mockery from foreign doctors who pay to be trained in our country, posting this content while living in a parallel world, and he fully aware that just a few meters away there is a town dying of hunger," he wrote in his Facebook post, which surpassed 4,900 views and 105 comments.
Dr. Enriquez Nodarse also posed a question that resonated with his followers: “How much money does the dictatorship receive for this 'package' of training a resident in dermatology?”
The comments from Cubans on that post reflect a deep sense of pain and accumulated indignation.
“That video pained me. Does he know that many of his teachers have nothing to eat? How sad,” wrote one person. Another noted, “The worst part is that this isn’t Cuba. My father was a great doctor and lived and died in the worst misery.”
A third comment provided economic context: "In Cuba, those who handle dollars in large quantities live in paradise. In Cuba, you can find everything, but you have to pay for it all in dollars or at dollarized prices in the national currency."
Someone summed up his reaction in a single word: "Miserable."
The contrast created by the video is striking. Cuban doctors earn salaries ranging from 5,000 to 8,000 pesos per month, which is equivalent to between ten and twenty dollars at the informal exchange rate, while the basic basket for two people in Havana exceeds 41,000 pesos.
Several health professionals have left the medical field due to the inability to make ends meet, and others have gone viral sharing videos showing that their salary lasts only a single day of shopping.
Meanwhile, the regime charges foreign doctors training on the island tuition fees of up to 1,000 dollars, along with semiannual payments ranging from 4,000 to 5,000 dollars for self-funded programs.
According to a research by El Toque, the Mexican government was paying between 7,800 and 12,500 euros annually for each medical specialty of its scholarship holders in Cuba.
The energy crisis that Dr. Sánchez mentions in passing has devastating consequences for the population. The UN warned in May 2026 that delayed by power outages and a lack of supplies, and that five million people with chronic illnesses are facing interruptions in their treatments.
On Friday, the Electric Union reported a deficit of 2,081 MW, with power outages in some areas exceeding twenty hours daily.
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