- The infant mortality rate rises to 8.2 per thousand and the maternal rate to 56.3 per cent.
- “Among the population, there is still a fair amount of dissatisfaction associated with the provision of services that we have been unable to resolve,” said the minister.
14ymedio, Madrid, July 15, 2025 — “It has been impossible to achieve the expected results in the most sensitive issues affecting our people.” With these words, published by the official press on Monday, the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, reported on the performance of his sector during the first half of the year. The picture is very dark, and the mother-child program is at the top of the list.
From January 1 to July 12 of this year, 234 infant deaths were recorded out of 28,400 live births. Although there were 26 fewer deaths than in the first six months of 2024, there were also fewer births: 28,400 compared to 35,138 in the same period last year. As a result, the infant mortality rate rose to 8.2% per 1,000 births, almost one percentage point higher than last year’s 7.4 percent.
Only six provinces maintain rates below 7: Sancti Spíritus (1.9), Cienfuegos (3.7), Pinar del Río (4.3), Matanzas (4.2), Artemisa (5) and Las Tunas (5.7).
The aging of the population was another of the “challenges” identified by the minister.
Although eight provinces maintain a zero maternal death rate, seven others do record deaths: three, respectively, Guantánamo, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba; two, Havana and Granma; and one, Mayabeque, Las Tunas and Pinar del Río.
The aging of the population was another of the “challenges” identified by the minister of the Health and Sports Committee, who is preparing a report for the next regular session of the National Assembly of People’s Power. Of the official figure of 9.7 million inhabitants, almost 2.5 million are elderly adults, 25.7% of the total, and care for them is not optimal. In the country, said Portal Miranda, there are 305 elderly facilities for 13,949 places, “90% of them certified,” and 156 nursing homes, 70% certified.
The minister not only recognized the disaster in these areas, but also the “difficulties to improve the state of construction of medical offices and an availability of only 30% of the basic set of drugs, which in pharmacies is barely 32%.”
The latter is one of the elements most criticized by the population, but it does not follow from Portal Miranda’s presentation that there is an easy solution. The minister vaguely alluded to the elimination of the illegal sale of medicines and said that “they ought to have a gradual recovery as long as the necessary financing is available.”
In the country whose propaganda flag has been healthcare since 1959, the medical staff and coverage of clinics are not complete.
Despite placing the “blockade” of the United States at the top of the list of those responsible for the situation, Portal Miranda did not fail to mention other obvious problems: the “exodus of professionals; failures in the organization of services -such as delays in surgical treatments; unethical attitudes; and the illegal sale of services in some institutions.” Thus, he conceded, insisting: “Among the population there remain fair dissatisfactions associated with the provision of services, which we have been unable to solve.”
In the country whose propaganda flag has been healthcare since 1959, the medical staff and coverage of clinics are not complete. There are 16,541 “healthcare facilities,” the minister indicated, “with 92.2% covered.” Although the minister says that wage benefits have been implemented for 72% of workers in the sector, which has “contributed to reducing layoffs by 25%, this does not solve all dissatisfaction.” The reduction in staff, he says, “has made it more difficult for hospitals to function.”
As measures to recover the labor force, for example, 156 retired nurses were hired, and “the rescue of another 191 through personalized arrangements” was achieved, said Portal Miranda, without specifying the details of those arrangements.
In the midst of the debacle, only one aspect shines: foreign exchange income; that is, the sale of medical services, Cuba’s main source of revenue. In the first half of the year, they achieved 102%, “reaching 50% of the annual target.”
However, despite this “over-fulfillmemt” and a “self-financing scheme in currencies” that “have allowed activities to be reordered and halted the deterioration of the system,” Portal Miranda said, with vocabulary typical of the Special Period, the conclusion is not ambiguous: “There are still no relevant results.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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