Cold Water on the Cuban Myth

It’s a rare month that doesn’t go by without yet another demonstration of why Michael Moore was so totally wrong on Cuba’s healthcare system.  Here‘s the latest:

Twenty-six patients at Cuba’s largest hospital for the mentally ill died this week during a cold snap, the government said Friday.
Human rights leaders cited negligence and a lack of resources as factors in the deaths, and the Health Ministry launched an investigation that it said could lead to criminal proceedings.

A Health Ministry communique read on state television blamed “prolonged low temperatures that fell to 38 degrees Fahrenheit (4 Celsius) in Boyeros,” the neighborhood where Havana’s Psychiatric Hospital is located.

It said most of the deaths were from natural causes such as old age, respiratory infections and complications from chronic diseases including cancer and cardiovascular problems.

The statement came in response to reports from the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights that at least 24 mental patients died of hypothermia this week, and that the hospital did not do enough to protect them from the cold because of problems such as faulty windows.

Commission head Elizardo Sanchez said that so many patients dying of hypothermia was “absurd in a tropical country” and claimed the deaths could have been prevented if the government had granted long-standing requests from international aid groups to tour Cuba’s medical facilities, including the capital’s 2,500-bed mental hospital.

But it’s universal healthcare!  And it’s free!

When P.J. O’Rourke visited East Germany, he marveled that communism could make a poor country out of Germans.  I have to stand back in awe of a system that has people freeze to death in Cuba of all places.  The Cubans are, as usual, blaming the US-led embargo.  But you don’t need fancy imports and trade to keep people warm at night. Is the embargo so onerous that their wonderful healthcare system can not procure a few blankets or seal a few windows?  How does this happen?