Lucía Céspedes Ocampo, the Cuban who weeks ago appeared on the Cuban National News thanking Miguel Díaz-Canel during a visit by the leader to the Havana neighborhood of La Timba, confessed this Sunday in a video that she owns a private clinic in France, from where she claims to shout "long live socialism, long live communism, and long live Fidel."
The revelation sparked immediate controversy due to the contradiction it represents: a public defender of the Cuban regime practicing private medicine in a capitalist French territory while preaching the virtues of communism.
In the video, Céspedes attempts to justify the apparent paradox with the following argument: "Regarding why I have a private clinic in France, oh, what a great sin for a communist! It's because I realized that I, being my own boss, whether in France or elsewhere, could practice a more humane medicine than if I were doing so from an establishment where interests other than those of a doctor prevail".
The cardiologist, residing in Guadeloupe—an overseas department and region of France—added that she practices "with a Cuban heart" from her office, just as she learned during the six months she studied medicine in Cuba.
Immediately afterward, though not appearing very convinced, she declared: "From my private clinic, wherever that may be, I say to you, long live socialism, long live communism, long live the Cuban revolution, and long live Fidel and all the men and women who strive for a better world."
The "human medicine" practiced in French capitalism
Céspedes' argument also raises several uncomfortable questions. By presenting her private clinic as the space from which she can practice a "more humane medicine," the cardiologist implies, without stating it outright, that the French healthcare system—where she lives, works, and thrives—would be less humane or dominated by interests that do not prioritize the well-being of the patient.
However, France is not a health jungle of private clinics motivated solely by profit: its system combines public hospitals, private clinics, mandatory insurance, state regulations, and patient freedom of choice.
According to official French data, the country had 2,962 hospitals and clinics in 2024, with 367,100 full hospitalization beds and 91,000 partial hospitalization places; furthermore, access to public hospital services is guaranteed even for the most vulnerable individuals in urgent cases.
The comparison with Cuba is even more revealing. The OECD notes that in France, the entire population is covered for a basic set of services, that 84% of health expenditure is covered by mandatory schemes, and that the country spends $7,367 PPP per capita on health, above the OECD average.
In Cuba, on the other hand, the very deterioration of the system that the regime promotes as "humane" forces patients and their families to seek medications, supplies, appointments, transportation, and even basic materials outside of state institutions.
Human Rights Watch documented in 2026 almost empty pharmacies, hospitals with limited resources, and patients forced to bring their own sheets, pillows, fans, or medical supplies; CiberCuba also reported that Díaz-Canel acknowledged the lack of resources to operate operating rooms and thousands of patients awaiting surgeries, cancer treatments, prenatal ultrasounds, and vaccinations.
His account weakens even further when he claims that he learned this supposed medicine "with a Cuban heart" during just six months of study on the Island. If he only spent that time in Cuba, there remains an essential question: where did he actually complete his medical training and under what system did he obtain the credentials that allow him to practice as a specialist in France?
What is presented as a lesson from Cuban socialism seems to depend, in practice, on the professional, legal, and economic guarantees of a capitalist country with a public, regulated, and highly comprehensive healthcare system.
A propagandist of the regime entrenched in capitalism
Céspedes is registered as a cardiologist in the French healthcare system with the number RPPS 10100518124, with an office in Sainte-Rose, Guadeloupe. Her activity as a medical specialist in private practice— the legal status equivalent to independent private practice— has been recorded since January 16, 2016, according to data from Société.com.
In the same video, Céspedes stated that "very soon" Cubans on the Island will be able to "have the same as in a capitalist country, but with a more equitable redistribution of wealth," and attributed the country's problems to the U.S. embargo, which she said "will come to an end."
This is not the first time the cardiologist has been at the center of controversy for defending Cuban socialism from abroad. In April, she went viral from Tenerife shouting, "Long live Cuba, long live my president Díaz-Canel" and insulting the exile community as "traitors, dragged worms, bomb throwers, and gringo lickers." In June, she defended the 176 economic transformation measures approved by the regime.
On September 25, Céspedes reappeared on the National News during Díaz-Canel's visit to La Timba, where she stated before the cameras: “Thank you for what you are doing. I live in France, in Guadeloupe.” The state media presented her only as “a young Cuban resident abroad,” without revealing her name or mentioning that she owns a private capitalist clinic.
The contradiction highlighted by critics is multifaceted: Céspedes advocates for communism while practicing private medicine in a capitalist system, insults the "worm exile" while she herself lives outside of Cuba, and from Tenerife, organized the shipment of rice, beans, and hygiene products to elderly Cubans, implicitly acknowledging that the state she defends cannot provide basic necessities to its population.
All of this is happening as Cuba faces its worst economic crisis in decades: inflation reached 31.9% in the first quarter of 2026, the peso devaluated to 685 per dollar, and the CEPAL projects a GDP decline of 6.5% for this year, which would make the Island the worst-performing economy in Latin America for the second consecutive year.
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