First-year Medicine students in Santiago de Cuba and Holguín joined the wave of protests initiated by their peers from Pinar del Río and Granma, demanding the elimination or restructuring of final exams due to the challenges posed by the ongoing electrical and logistical crisis in Cuba.
Both student communities sent formal letters to their respective Boards of Directors, beginning with an urgent ethical appeal: "To expose the objective limitations that currently compromise our academic performance."
The final integrative exams are scheduled from June 29 to July 3.
Students at the University of Medical Sciences of Santiago de Cuba argue that the data speaks for itself: "The vulnerability in preparation is not an abstract estimate. The widespread decline in scores on partial exams objectively demonstrates that the student body is not in a position to undergo a traditional comprehensive assessment."
The letter also points out that the course has been conducted in a decentralized manner, which exacerbates the difficulties, and that blackouts and transportation shortages have drastically reduced both attendance and hours of independent study.
From Holguín, where the population has had barely three hours of electricity a day, the message is even more emphatic: "There are no minimum conditions to face a final integrative exam with the traditional rigor. The interruptions in electricity supply and the resulting lack of effective study time at home and in student residences make it unfair to assess our performance according to the usual standards."
The students of the "Mariana Grajales Coello" University of Medical Sciences also add a dimension of equity that the government has not addressed: "It's not fair that first year is the only one with final exams when we are all going through the same situation."
Both groups formally request two alternatives: that the exams already taken be considered as the final grade, or that the syllabus be reduced to the contents that were actually consolidated in the classroom.
The protest has sparked a polarized debate on social media, with criticisms directed at the students, who quickly responded. A medical student countered with a straightforward message: "Do a shift without electricity and without supplies, and then we can talk."
That same young man rejected comparisons with previous generations and was emphatic about the root of the problem: "It's not the rigor of the tests; it's the shortcomings and the situation of the country."
He described a daily reality of blackouts that leave ETECSA service unavailable from nine at night, students with visual impairments who cannot use lanterns, a lack of proper breakfast, and the absence of sphygmomanometers for third-year students.
Her conclusion encapsulates the sentiment of a generation: "They call us the glass generation when instead of living, we are surviving."
The student claim reveals a contradiction that the regime has been unable to explain: in May, the Ministry of Higher Education suspended the university entrance exams for the 2026-2027 academic year, implicitly acknowledging that the electrical crisis hinders fair assessment, yet this same logic has not been applied to those already enrolled in their degree programs.
In that same month, sixth-year Medical students in Santiago de Cuba saw their hospital rotations suspended to fulfill mandatory military training as part of the so-called "Year of Preparation for Defense," another interference by the regime in the medical training that the students themselves have denounced.
The electrical crisis underlying this entire situation recorded in June a generation deficit of between 2,040 and 2,215 MW during peak hours, with areas of the country experiencing over 72 continuous hours without electricity.
The regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel has failed to reverse the situation, and it now threatens to leave an Island that is already facing the collapse of its healthcare system without well-trained doctors.
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