"We work in the worst conditions, like dogs": a strong denunciation from a Cuban doctor

The Cuban doctor Adrián Antonio Legrá Góngora published a about the conditions in which health workers operate in Cuba: over 72 hours without electricity, nights without sleep due to extreme heat, and physical assaults with no one to defend them.

"We have been without electricity for over 72 hours, and the food we had stored has spoiled. More than two nights without sleep because it is impossible to rest in the unbearable heat, and without any electricity to make it more bearable," the doctor wrote in his Facebook post.

Despite this situation, Legrá Góngora recounts that the medical staff does not abandon their posts: “Despite all of this, we continue working, in the worst conditions, like dogs. We suffer the mistreatment from our system and also from the population, which, in venting their anger at others, take it out on the on-duty doctor.”

One of the most serious episodes he describes is the physical aggression suffered by one of his colleagues during a watch.

"Yesterday, one of my colleagues was physically assaulted by a desperate person in the guardroom. The doctor, after briefly assessing him, continued to tend to other patients," he reported.

In light of this situation, the doctor poses a question that encapsulates the institutional neglect experienced by the sector: "But who defends us? Who responds when staff are attacked? Yesterday it was one of my colleagues; tomorrow it could be me."

Legrá Góngora concludes his publication with a direct political demand and a warning about the exodus of professionals who can no longer endure: "We demand freedom for our people. We demand change now." He adds, "With the heaviest heart, to my patients who so desperately need my attention and care, I cannot promise to be on duty tomorrow. One less doctor."

Legrá Góngora's complaint is not an isolated case.

In June, the intensivist Leudis Alfonso Minguía was physically attacked at the Hospital de Cárdenas in Matanzas by a man connected to law enforcement, and there was an attempt to invert the roles of victim and aggressor.

A month earlier, the regime itself acknowledged that doctors were assaulted in the emergency room of the Saturnino Lora Hospital in Santiago de Cuba.