Inside Cuba’s socialist health system, with journalist Rania Khalek

Journalist Rania Khalek, of BreakThrough News, discusses her reporting trip to Cuba, where she saw how US sanctions, which are illegal under international law, have caused hardship and shortages.

She interviewed medical experts and describes Cuba’s socialist health system, which has produced multiple Covid-19 vaccines, despite being under a suffocating blockade imposed by the United States.

“People are dealing with a lot of difficulties because of the blockade,” Khalek recalled. “And that’s in combination with all kinds of US schemes to undermine the socialist revolution in that country, you know whether it’s hundreds of assassination attempts, attempted invasions, actual terrorism sponsored by the United States, and so many other ways the US has tried to undermine the Cuban government, through various NGOs, and NGO money, and using the internet, and on and on.”

Former US President Donald Trump added 243 new sanctions measures against Cuba, many in the middle of the Covid pandemic. And the Joe Biden administration has maintained those illegal unilateral coercive measures, while adding even more.

Yet despite these enormous difficulties, Cuba has an “incredible medical system,” Khalek explained.

“It’s free, and it all revolves around preventative care, in a really holistic way, where you have layers of medical care, from your local neighborhood doctor – whose house you can go to for easy visits, who goes and actually checks on disabled and elderly people in the neighborhood, to make sure their vitals are good, their blood pressure is good, they’re getting what they need – to neighborhood clinics, to bigger hospitals that they’ll send you to if the neighborhood clinic can’t help you. And then there are various specialties they’ll send you to if you need really serious care, for a really serious problem.”

“And so their medical system inside the country is incredible, because it exists across the country, even in the countryside, which was a huge accomplishment of the revolution in Cuba,” Khalek said.

“But more than that, Cuba has these international medical brigades, and they send their doctors to provide basically free medical care to areas around the world, particularly the developing world. And they’ll serve in very poor areas of like Brazil, and Venezuela, and Bolivia, and various countries in Africa, in order to provide care to people who otherwise don’t have access to medical care.”

You can watch or listen to the interview below:

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