An 83-year-old woman with a hip fracture is transported in a horse-drawn cart to receive medical attention in Guamá

An 83-year-old woman with a hip fracture had to be transported this Friday in a horse-drawn cart to the Giraldo Aponte Fonseca Polyclinic, located in the municipality of Guamá, Santiago de Cuba, to receive medical evaluation, as documented by reporter Yosmany Mayeta Labrada.

The operation involved members of the GMOS Guamá alongside volunteers from the Cuban Red Cross, who accompanied the patient lying on an improvised board in an outdoor setting with deteriorated walls.

The images shared by Mayeta Labrada show the elderly woman being attended to by at least two people while an animal-drawn cart was used as an ambulance, due to the lack of proper medical transport in the municipality.

"How is it possible for an 83-year-old person with a hip fracture to be transported like this to receive medical attention?" the journalist asked while sharing the images.

The case is not an isolated incident, but rather the most recent expression of a structural crisis affecting healthcare transportation throughout Cuba.

In June 2026, a patient was taken by horse-drawn carriage to the Camilo Cienfuegos Provincial Hospital in Sancti Spíritus, where local reports indicated that even deceased individuals were arriving at the facility in animal-drawn vehicles.

In August, a woman who fell into an uncovered well in Bayamo was first transported by cart and then by electric motorcycle due to a lack of ambulance.

At the beginning of October, according to a report by Infobae, a campesino injured with a machete in Camagüey could not be transported by ambulance because the unit was out of service.

The numbers illustrate the magnitude of the problem: according to data from the Ministry of Public Health for 2022, only 39.6% of the necessary ambulances were technically available in the country.

In 2026, the situation worsened: Granma acknowledged having 17 active ambulances out of 54 needed; Pinar del Río operated with only 12 units; and in Matanzas, of the 20 existing ambulances, only 14 were functioning.

The regime's response has been focused in Havana: 25 electric ambulances added in February and 200 electric cars for dialysis patients put into circulation in May, measures that have not reached rural municipalities such as Guamá.

Santiago de Cuba has also accumulated specific complaints: in September, hospitals in the province reported sewage under the beds, cockroaches in the delivery room, and rats in perinatology areas.

The Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, acknowledged in July 2025 before the National Assembly that only 30% of the basic medication supply was available in the country.

"The solidarity of those who help deserves recognition, but we also need ambulances and proper medical transport," concluded Mayeta Labrada while denouncing the transfer of the elderly woman from Guam.