The authorities promise that they will “solve” the supply problem, which has been affecting the province for months.
14ymedio, Havana, 10 December 2024 — Unsanitary medical care is one of the consequences suffered by the inhabitants of Las Tunas due to the poor water supply. According to the official newspaper Periódico 26 on Monday, 216 of the 517 medical clinics in the province do not have water, which is “detrimental to the quality of Primary Care.” This means that 4 out of 10 do not have the service.
The provincial newspaper also explains that 60% of the centers “are in good condition, but 11% are currently in a bad state in that regard.” The newspaper did not report the conditions of the remaining 29%, but the complaints and posts by patients on social media illustrate the crisis facing some of the facilities that constitute the first step of primary care on the island.
Faced with this situation, the authorities promise better training for health personnel, greater access to the Internet, “revitalizing the clinics” and opening three new ones. They also “confirmed their willingness to solve” the water supply. However, the problem of supply has worsened in recent weeks, but it has been dragging on since at least the beginning of last year, either due to droughts or lack of access to the water network.
Authorities promise better training for health personnel, greater access to the Internet, “revitalizing clinics” and opening three new ones
The instability of the water supply significantly hampers the operation of health care centers already affected by the exodus of health professionals and the lack of supplies. The family doctor program was one of the crown jewels of health care on the island and the construction of thousands of these facilities, which included an area for consultations and another as housing for doctors, unleashed an official frenzy in the late 1980s and during the 1990s.
In February 2023, the province’s 23 reservoirs had only 106 million cubic meters of water, equivalent to 30% of their capacity. The low accumulation was mainly due to a drastic reduction in rainfall, which at the end of January of that year only reached 6.8 millimeters (mm), well below the historical average for that month of 30.3 mm.
Months later, in November, the problem was access to the drinking water network. The situation was on the verge of collapse in the province. With the reservoirs 75% full, some 90,000 people in Las Tunas had no running water service. A problem caused, in large part, by the lack of fuel to pump the water and breakdowns in equipment and pipes. A month later, 100,000 people were receiving water by tanker trucks and another 6,267 by train service.
Since then, the problem has worsened, but the press has avoided reporting the number of people affected or saying how long the service would take, with some places going months without water. At that time, the authorities promised to stabilize the service to the population, but this did not happen .
The press avoided giving the number of those affected or saying how long the service would take, with in some places going months without water.
Almost a year later, as of this October, the province acquired 10 electric pumps to resume service, but it was not until November that the installations began. The water pumping equipment in the main city had stopped working because, for more than two decades, they had only received light maintenance.
The same newspaper, Periódico 26, reported last month that, of the pumps that were purchased – the official press did not clarify their origin – only four had been installed. And one of those, due to a missing cable, did not start working immediately.
In total, the equipment guarantees a delivery of 375 liters per second of the 500 that the authorities had promised. However, the problem of supply in the province is not limited to sending water from the dams and wells to the water treatment plant and from there to the villages, but also to repairing pipes, and fixing the leaks in the lines that limit the arrival of water to homes.
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