Cuba health crisis leaves cancer patients waiting

Cuba's health crisis is leaving cancer, cardiac and dialysis patients waiting for tests, facing reduced treatment and relying on hospitals struggling with broken equipment, medicine shortages, power cuts and staff losses.

Rosa Valentina Perez, 64, has spent nearly three weeks in Cuba's main cancer clinic waiting for a CT scan to find out whether breast cancer has spread to her spine. The only working CT scanner in Havana is at the city's neurology hospital, where the waitlist is long.

At the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology, the waitlist for radiotherapy is above 1,200 patients. Institute director Luis Eduardo Martin said 80 percent of equipment used in diagnostics and treatment is obsolete or broken.

Government data shows the country's childhood cancer survival rate has fallen from 85 percent before the crisis to 65 percent currently. Mariuska Forteza, head of the institute's pediatric oncology unit, said routine blood tests are being reduced because of a lack of equipment and fuel to move samples between hospitals.

Heart treatment is also under strain. Jose Esteban Abreu, a doctor at the National Institute of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery, said annual heart surgeries have fallen from more than 400 in 2018 to barely 100 currently. About 130 patients are waiting for pacemakers.

In the dialysis unit of Havana's Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital, nephrology head Iamara Castro said some sessions have been cut from four hours to two so more patients can receive treatment and limited staff are not overworked.