- The province is reorganizing its services to monitor the sick, while the population is reluctant to go to emergency rooms because of their condition.
- At least three other provinces are taking action, including Havana.
14ymedio, Matanzas, October 9, 2025 — The dormitories of the University of Medical Sciences in Matanzas have been emptied and converted into a makeshift hospital to deal with the epidemiological situation in the province. As confirmed by 14ymedio in a visit to the center, near the Faustino Pérez hospital, students have been sent home to make room for pediatric care rooms. Some were still seen around on Thursday with packages and backpacks. While they were leaving, the sick children who could not be treated in the Eliseo Noel Caamaño Provincial Pediatric Hospital, which was 100% full, were being brought by bus to the university for admission.
On social media, several people have alluded to the “abrupt expulsion” of the university students. “Now they have taken the students from Medical Sciences, whose building is next to the Hospital Faustino Pérez, to extend both the pediatric ward and the hospital itself because they are overwhelmed,” commented a woman on Facebook at the bottom of the epidemiological article published daily by Dr. Francisco Durán.
Reporter Niover Licea also published a comment from a student. “We were ordered to evict without notice. It’s disrespectful. There is no food for those who stay, and they want to solve at once what they did not prevent from the beginning. This crisis will end when we are all sick.” According to him, the university authorities asked the students to be discreet and warned them against possible reprisals for disseminating data on the health situation.
The provincial newspaper, Girón, indicated on Wednesday afternoon that the capacity of the Provincial Children’s Hospital Eliseo Noel Caamaño is at 100%. “We have a complex epidemiological scenario where arbovirosis joins other viral infections, such as rotaviruses that cause diarrhoeal diseases, which increases the demand for care,” said the center’s director, Anaelis Santana Alvarez.
Currently, there is a reinforcement of the distribution of patients and human resources, possibly –although it is not indicated– as a result of the dispatch of health personnel that the authorities announced last Monday. Dr. Santana stated, however, that the total occupancy of the hospital is nothing more than the result of protocols requiring compulsory admission of children under 10 years old with fever and suspected arbovirosis, “regardless of whether they present complications or not.”
The staff reinforcement plan includes, in any case, specialists and emergency room residents as well as students to assist in consultations. The hospitals of Cárdenas and Colón have been mobilized to provide care for children over age five “without warning signs,” in order to decentralize care and alleviate the burden. The Eliseo Noel Caamaño Hospital is, therefore, left with those who do present such warning signs and infants under one year, in addition to the most serious symptoms, which according to the directive have not occurred so far.
“There has been no lack of resources to care for the children, nor does the province have serious or critical arbovirosis,” he said, while categorically denying that there are cases of cholera, as has circulated on social networks. “The current diarrheal disease is caused by seasonal rotavirus.”
Julio Ernesto Hernández, director of Medical Assistance in the province, said that there are 75 beds in Matanzas to care for feverish patients and they are ready to expand by 100 more. “The fundamental thing for the population is to go to the doctor when there are any symptoms,” he said, the same idea that had previously been highlighted by the director of the pediatric department. He expressed his confidence in the system and a vigilance that, in his opinion, works, so that there have been no deaths, while asking the families to remain calm, because the specialists are trained for their task.
The citizens’ distrust is not, in any case, in the doctors. The lack of drugs and reagents to detect the specific disease is now a cause of discomfort and disgust among the population. However, the main obstacle in this scenario is the poor hygienic condition which exists in many hospital centers and which profoundly discourages patients from seeking help.
The lack of drugs and reagents to detect specific diseases is now a cause of discomfort and disgust among the population
In this respect, households are not much better protected either. Julio Ernesto Hernández urged the population to “maintain general measures in housing, self focus, adequate intake of liquids and to watch for possible warning signs.” However, the lack of running water in countless houses, together with the garbage that floods the streets, do not create the best scenario for halting the spread of this type of disease.
“After the capital, the dirtiest city in garbage collection is Matanzas. Do not invest more money in making parks and allocate the budget to clean up the city: that is quality of life, that is vector zero. Please, are there no leaders with vision in the 21st century? The formula is easy: clean city, zero diseases,” reacted a user on the site of the newspaper Girón.
More than 100 people responded, warning that the epidemiological situation in the city has been serious for weeks and the reaction is late and precarious. “One arrives with sick children and they abuse you and leave you lying there, not to mention the poor hygiene in bathrooms and clinics,” reproached another. Many comments reveal family-wide contagion.
Although the epicenter of this panorama is Matanzas, the rest of the island is not saved, and Havana, in particular, is worried because of its its high population and density. The authorities have continued to report sanitation work, including the removal of garbage, which already has reached 90,000 cubic meters, compared with 35,000 at the weekend. The capital city is also facing a viral outbreak, and new reports are coming to this newspaper every day: patients with very high fevers, severe muscle aches and rashes.
Sources from the Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico Salvador Allende, better known as La Covadonga, told Cibercuba on Wednesday that a public health commission visited the center with the idea of enabling it for patients of arbovirosis
It has not been officially reported, but sources from the Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico Salvador Allende, better known as La Covadonga, told Cibercuba this Wednesday that a Public Health Commission visited the center with the idea of enabling it for patients with arbovirosis, similar to the Matanzas pediatric hospital, but for adults. For this, it would be necessary to close the departments of Internal Medicine, Ophthalmology, Urology, Orthopedics and Geriatrics, in which patients with dengue, chikungunya and other diseases transmitted by mosquitoes would be admitted. The six operating rooms would remain open, but outpatient consultations would be suspended if the plan is implemented.
Ciego de Ávila has also announced, in this case formally, a strengthening of surveillance for the same reason. For the time being, efforts will focus on fumigation and waste clearance, especially in the most affected areas: Morón, Ciego de Ávila and Venezuela. The decision is taken on the basis of the spread that leaves two health areas as the epicenter of the disease, the Belkis Sotomayor polyclinic in the capital city and the Morón South polyclinic.
The same strategy is planned, for now, in Bayamo, Granma province, where there are many cases of arbovirosis. There, the authorities have required the population and companies, state and private, to comply with their part in “the strategy of sanitation and disposal of sewage, weeds and landfills,” including the obligation to facilitate the entry of health personnel who carry out door-to-door searches. Otherwise, remember, there will be “the imposition of fines or other punitive measures in cases where necessary.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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