New York, September 25, 2018. Since the inception of the policy of harassment and blockade by the US government towards Cuba, its people and its Revolution, a line of action aimed at limiting access to food and medicine has been present, with the objective of forcing the Cuban people into surrender through hunger and disease. However, one of the priorities of the Cuban government has always been to guarantee the welfare of its population, including universal free health care as an inviolable principle.
The official of the Department of State, L.D. Mallory, wrote on April 6, 1960 - after recognizing in his document that "the majority of Cubans support Castro" and that "there is no effective political opposition" - that "... any conceivable means to weaken the economic life of Cuba should be used promptly. (...) One line of action that may have the greatest impact is to deprive Cuba of money and supplies, in order to reduce real and money wages to cause hunger. despair and the overthrow of the government ".
After 56 years of criminal unilateral sanctions, this has resulted in serious damage to the Cuban health care system and in a huge sorrow for patients and relatives who are affected by these measures. In fact, between April 2017 and March 2018, MEDICUBA SA, a Cuban importer and exporter of medical products, submitted several orders to more than 30 US companies for purchasing the necessary inputs for our health system, answers were only obtained from the Agilent and Cook companies, which stated that, due to the blockade regulations, they could not sell any medicine to Cuba. Among the orders are treatments, medicines and / or technologies for the treatment of cancer in children, minimal access surgery and human DNA sequencers to diagnose genetic diseases and the predisposition to suffer them.
At the same time, Cuba has been unable to purchase Nitric Oxide on the US market, used for the prevention or effective treatment of acute pulmonary hypertensive crises, which can be serious and even deadly. Between 8 and 10 percent of the annual surgeries in the William Soler Pediatric Cardiovascular Center are performed on children suffering from this disease. Nitric Oxide, due to its potentially explosive content, can only be transported by ship and within a short time, which prevents its transfer from distant markets.
Another fact that shows the effects and extraterritoriality of the US policy on Cuban public health occurred in March 2018, when the company MEDICUBA SA, was informed that the Indian company ACULIFE refused to dispatch directly to the island the Levofloxacin, a medicine used to treat bacterial infections of the skin, bronchitis, pneumonia, among other diseases. This was due to the fact that the bank that operates the account of this company in India was opposed to accrediting the payments made by Cuba, since the shipping documents that justified this payment had as final destination a blocked country.
Likewise, the academic exchanges between Cuban and US health specialists have been reduced, as well as the participation of Cuban professionals in events and courses sponsored by US institutions.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations.