A Cuban mother erupted in a video posted on Facebook as she described the conditions in which she cares for her son with cerebral palsy amidst the prolonged blackouts and lack of water that her home suffers.
Nercy Álvarez Valdés recorded the testimony visibly exhausted and on the verge of tears. “I can't take the situation in this country anymore. Honestly, I can't take it any longer,” she says at the beginning of the video, which has garnered over 126,000 views.
He explains that in his home they only receive three hours of electricity a day. "There are entire nights without light," he states. Without the possibility of charging the fan, he spends the nights fanning his son with a piece of cardboard so he can sleep.
This deprivation is compounded by the lack of water. "It has been a week since they provided water," she reports. Without a functioning washing machine and unable to afford disposable diapers— which according to her own account cost between 6,000 and 8,000 Cuban pesos— Nercy uses cloth diapers that she needs to wash by hand, but she cannot do so.
"I'm not asking for anything luxurious. I just want to be allowed to wash my son's rags by hand with water," she says. She adds, "My son needs hygiene. To put it simply, he urinates and has bowel movements since he was born. I haven't stopped washing cloth diapers."
The video ends with a phrase that encapsulates the frustration: "I know that the priority is not the people, but the revolution, yet I need you to think a little about the animals like us who live here."
A crisis that crushes the most vulnerable
Nercy's testimony is not an isolated case. In June, another Cuban mother reported that she was denied an ambulance due to "lack of fuel" to transport her son who has cerebral palsy, a tracheostomy, and requires constant oxygen.
That same month, a mother in Santa Clara revealed that in order to discharge her baby with cerebral palsy and epilepsy, she was required to provide a photovoltaic kit and emergency oxygen, specifically because of the blackouts.
The water crisis in Cuba is further exacerbated by power outages. 87% of Cuban aqueducts depend on the National Electric System to pump water. By the end of May, around 2.7 million Cubans lacked regular access to drinking water, and about 10 million experienced intermittent supply, according to official data.
While the regime does not offer concrete solutions, Cuban mothers with seriously ill children continue to turn to social media to denounce what state institutions cannot — or do not want to — resolve.
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