The Provincial University Gyneco-Obstetric Hospital "Ana Betancourt de Mora" in Camagüey presented a gift basket to the mother of the first baby born through natural delivery on August 13, the centenary of Fidel Castro's birth, according to images shared by Radio Camagüey on Facebook.
The gesture was presented by the state media as part of the tributes to the revolutionary leader. "As part of the tribute to the revolutionary leader, a gift basket was presented for the benefit of the child and her family on behalf of the workers at the assistance center," stated the publication, framed under the official hashtags #100YearsWithFidel and #CubaForLife.
The photographs show nurses and female doctors in white coats visiting the mother in her hospital bed, with baby clothes and stuffed animals as gifts on the bed.
The staff poses alongside the mother and the newborn in a room with mint green walls and a standing fan in the background.
According to the images, the mother received baby clothes, a new mattress, and a wooden crib.
The case of Camagüey was not the only one that day. The Vladimir Ilich Lenin University General Hospital in Holguín also presented a gift basket to Yudaimi González Almenares, who gave birth to a girl weighing 3,180 grams in the early morning of the centenary.
The baby's father, identified as José Manuel, reportedly expressed his wish for his daughter to be born precisely on August 13th.
This practice of linking births to dates on the revolutionary calendar has documented precedents.
On the 99th anniversary of Castro's birth, in August 2025, a baby born in Matanzas received a gift basket linked to the celebration, and something similar occurred in Santiago de Cuba. In May 2024, the Ministry of the Interior also distributed gift baskets to babies born on May Day in Sancti Spíritus.
The Cuban regime also distributed gift baskets and celebrated the birthdays of children born on June 14 each year, the birth date of Antonio Maceo and Ernesto Che Guevara.
However, the contrast between official propaganda and the reality of the Cuban health system is hard to ignore. The Camagüey hospital has been the subject of reports regarding the deaths of babies due to alleged negligence so far in 2026, and the perinatal care unit of the same facility has been noted for its material deficiencies.
The centenary of Castro —born on August 13, 1926, in Birán, Holguín— was declared by the regime as the "Year of the Centenary of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz" and included a central event at the Karl Marx theater in Havana with the presence of Raúl Castro, as well as an international colloquium with over 1,500 delegates from 63 countries. Reuters framed the commemoration in the context of one of the worst economic and political crises in Cuba's recent history.
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