The Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel visited the Ramón González Coro Teaching Gyneco-Obstetric University Hospital in Havana this Thursday, where he sought to motivate the healthcare staff by coining the term "creative resilience" to describe the efforts of those working amidst power outages, shortages of medications, and without transportation to get to work, according to a video released by Canal Caribe.
Díaz-Canel openly acknowledged the conditions under which the staff at the center operates: "Today you, doctors, nurses, health personnel of this hospital, without transportation, many of you probably had to leave early this morning to take care of pending matters at home, are here today, arriving almost on foot and continuing to save lives."
Far from presenting concrete solutions, Díaz-Canel appealed to the rhetoric of sacrifice and quoted Fidel Castro to justify the precariousness: “These are difficult times; Fidel always told us that in crises we must also find opportunities to grow, to develop, to become professional, and sooner or later we will overcome this situation.”
The ruler himself described the overall situation in the country without euphemisms: “Teachers finished the school year holding classes without electricity, and those who work producing food and in other enterprises are doing so without fuel. That is the picture of a country and a people that are suffering; we are suffering every day.”
Her definition of "creative resistance" was as follows: "It's not just about enduring the blows of adversity and repression, but about how we virtuously move forward amidst those restrictions."
Díaz-Canel was accompanied by the Vice Prime Minister Eduardo Martínez Díaz and the Ministers of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, and Communications, Mayira Revich Marín.
The González Coro serves around 1,000 expectant mothers from various municipalities in Havana and provides specialized services to women from all over the country.
Among the challenges that the hospital presented to the president are reducing the maternal-infant mortality rate to levels seen in previous years, filling staffing positions—especially in nursing and cleaning staff—and advancing digitalization.
The center also aims to increase its bed capacity to 200 and install solar panels.
The visit takes place while the Cuban health system is "on the brink of collapse", as the Portal Miranda itself acknowledged in February of this year.
The country operates with only 30% of the essential medicine stock available, with 461 out of 651 essential drugs completely missing or in low supply.
Infant mortality in Cuba has more than doubled since 2018, rising from 4.0 to 9.9 per 1,000 live births by the end of 2025.
In Havana, that figure reached 14 per 1,000 in the first two months of 2026, the highest level in two decades. Maternal mortality grew by 50% between 2024 and mid-2025.
More than 77,500 healthcare professionals emigrated between 2021 and 2024, including over 30,000 doctors, while the regime retains more than 16,000 health collaborators in 50 countries through its international missions, which have been highlighted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as a program with serious indications of forced labor and salary retention of up to 97.5%.
In front of the staff at González Coro, Díaz-Canel warned about the consequences of medical personnel abandoning their posts: "Imagine if our medical staff in an institution like this were to be disbanded, if people became cowardly, if you yourselves stopped providing that... who would attend to pregnant women, who would deliver babies, how would we achieve births?"
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