A nurse from Cienfuegos with 18 years of service in the Cuban health system posted a message of complaint on Facebook this week following the death of her colleague Maribel Pupo, a licensed nurse from Cumanayagua who passed away on November 2 after being assaulted while on duty.
Yenisey Álvarez Enamorado, a resident of Cienfuegos, wrote his text without concessions: "From Cienfuegos, Nuclear City, I write this with contained rage and a shattered soul. I am not going to soften anything. What happened to Nurse Maribel Pupo is a crime that cuts through all of us who put on the uniform each day to care for a community that often responds with disdain."
Maribel Pupo worked in the Vaccination Department of the Aracelio Rodríguez Teaching Hospital in Cumanayagua and was assaulted on October 29 while encouraging a family to complete the vaccination schedule for a minor.
The blow knocked her down and caused severe head injuries, including three cerebral hematomas.
She was first treated at the polyclinic in Cumanayagua and then transferred to Cienfuegos, where she underwent surgery. Her body did not endure, passing away four days later.
Her daughters were left without a mother, her husband without a wife. The nurses of Cumanayagua held a guard of honor at the local funeral home.
The General Health Directorate of Cumanayagua confirmed the death on social media with a message of condolence, but did not provide details about the circumstances of the assault nor did it report on any ongoing criminal investigation.
That absence of institutional response is precisely what Yenisey Álvarez highlights in her publication, in which she demands that the profession stop shouldering blame that does not belong to them: “We are NOT to blame for the lack of supplies. We are NOT to blame for the shortcomings of the system. We are NOT to blame for the needs affecting the people. We are not the enemy. We are the ones who care, who knock on doors, who stand up when others are not present.”
The nurse also points to the underlying pattern in the case: "Violence against healthcare personnel is not an isolated incident; it is a warning that we have been raising for years and today it has taken a life."
The case of Maribel Pupo is part of a documented series of assaults against Cuban healthcare workers.
In December 2025, nurse Rosa Idania Ferrer Pérez was murdered in Palmira, also in Cienfuegos. In June 2026, intensive care physician Leudis Alfonso Minguía was physically assaulted during his shift at the Hospital de Cárdenas, Matanzas. In August, obstetrician Yanelkys Alonso Valdés was murdered in her home in Güines, Mayabeque, and days later her mother also died, severely injured in the same attack.
The case also highlights a specific tension within the Cuban healthcare system: staff are required to persuade parents to vaccinate their children, a task that is carried out without a clear legal framework and without protective mechanisms for the workers.
A colleague of Maribel Pupo described her on social media as "a magnificent nurse, a great professional, and above all, an exceptional person. A lifetime dedicated to her vocation, caring for others with commitment and humanity."
Yenisey Álvarez concluded his message with a collective demand that encapsulates the frustration of the community: "We demand respect. We demand honor. We demand protection. We demand justice. May this crime not go unpunished, may it not be silenced, may it not be normalized."
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