Given the attempt by the US delegation attending the 60th session of the Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), to minimize the impact of the unjust economic, commercial and financial blockade that its Government imposes on our people, the Minister of Public Health, José Angel Portal Miranda, demanded that nation stop “hiding from the world the serious damage that this policy causes to the Health sector in Cuba.”
The blockade, no one doubts it, the Minister stressed, continues “to represent a brake on the development and strengthening of the National Health System.”
“And as if it didn't seem enough to anyone, its negative impact was worsened and more cruel in the context of confronting the pandemic caused by COVID-19, during which there was not a single relief measure for our country,” he denounced.
Among the main damages that the measures associated with the blockade bring with them, Portal Miranda highlighted to the participants in the important health event, "the impossibility of acquiring medical technology of American origin or with more than 10 percent of components manufactured in that nation." .
Medicines, equipment, medical devices, reagents and other supplies used in medical care, he explained, have to be obtained in geographically distant markets and in many cases through intermediaries, which represents a notable increase in prices.
It also meant the arbitrary inclusion of our country on the list of States that supposedly sponsor terrorism. This, he emphasized, "makes the situation worse, since banks refuse to make transfers whose final destination is Cuba, limiting the payment of contracts for the acquisition of resources of importance to the system."
At the end of his words, the Minister of Public Health invited those present “to take into account the resolutions approved since 1992 by the United Nations General Assembly on the need to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the Government of the United States against my country.”
On all those occasions, he recalled, “these documents have had the majority support of the international community.”
“That is why I demand a little more respect with my people, we have earned it.”
Dr. José Angel Portal Miranda, Minister of Public Health of Cuba
https://salud.msp.gob.cu/ministro-de-salud-publica-de-cuba-denuncia-que-...