Cuba cold snap kills 26 at psychiatric hospital

[Bacchus39]

Source: AP


HAVANA – Twenty-six patients at Cuba's top 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 like old age, respiratory infections and complications from chronic diseases including cancer and cardiovascular problems.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100115/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_hospital_deaths

[timeforpeace]

1. Certainly runs counter to the image being promoted.

[Bobbieo]

2. Depends on where one lives. Our lows here in Yuma have not run below

the 50 degree mark all winter. We freeze up below 40 degrees out here.

[LanternWaste]

6. There's an image that...

There's an image that there are no deaths in Cuba? Or that the Cuban medical system is immune to unforeseen circumstances?

What is the precise and relevant "image" you refer to, and precisely where is this image being promoted?

[naaman fletcher]

24. The answer to anything negative about Cuba is always..

"But Cuba has a great medical system".

It take a long time to die from the cold.. probably days in this instance. The great medical system couldn't come up with some blankets.

[24601]

26. Which image, Cuban Medicine or Global Warming? or Both? n/t

[bertman]

3. Even a "workers' paradise" screws the pooch every now and then. Very sad. nt

[Peace Patriot]

4. We never hear a goddamned thing from the Associated Pukes about Cuba's excellent and UNIVERSAL

FREE health care system, but, hey, if anything goes wrong in Cuba, they are right there with a headline and plenty of rightwingers to trumpet it all over the place.

I'm very sorry to hear about this tragedy. I'm glad the government is being open about it. And I hope, if crime was involved, that those responsible are prosecuted. But I think that we should also note--since the corpo-fascist press never does--how successful and high quality Cuba's FREE medical system is. It is admired throughout the world, except here. It gets very high marks on all health stats--equaling or exceeding "first world" health care systems, and one of its finest features is FREE medical educations for doctors and health professionals, so that they do not come out of school in heavy debt, and having to make decisions based on money and not on the needs of patients and communities. We should be studying this system, and learning from it. Instead, our corpo-fascist press keeps our people ignorant of it, so that we can't even consider it and look at its pluses and minuses-- what works, what doesn't, what might work here, what wouldn't--and make up our own minds about it. It goes into a "black hole" where they shove a lot of important information and important news that doesn't serve their profit interest.

Just sayin'. And have you visited one of OUR warehouses for the elderly poor recently? Some of our convalescent homes are dreadful. Not to mention Reagan throwing mental patients out onto the streets in California! How recently has AP covered that terrible story, if ever--a phenomenon that greets us every day with mentally ill patients in rags and homeless on the streets of the USA. Tens of thousands of neglected people--not just 26. And millions, if you count them all in the U.S., over the last three decades. But Cuba messes up once, and AP gloats over it, and so do some DUers.

[daleo]

5. Haiti is a capitalist paradise (if you are a multi-national corporation)

Had there never been a Cuban revolution, Cuba would probably be a lot like Haiti.

[WriteDown]

7. Healthcare, yes.....central heat, no. nt

[carla]

8. Find me a tropical island

with central heating...duh?

[WriteDown]

9. Sure!

http://vacationrentals.travel.yahoo.net/listings/location-Key-West--FL/amenities-Central-heating:Screened-porch

[Hekate]

27. Yeah. The coldest it ever got overnight when I was a kid on O'ahu was 57 deg. & I shivered all night

... under my light blanket, unable to really sleep that one night. We had no heating whatsoever in our house, nor did we have air conditioning. No one that I knew did. As far as heat and humidity went, we had trade winds and we opened our windows to them. When it rained we closed the windows.

If we'd ever had a prolonged 38 degree cold spell I am quite sure there would have been some fatalities. People in the tropics -- their bodies aren't used to that, and they don't have the clothing, blankets, home insulation, or heaters for it either.

Temperatures didn't vary much from season to season-- maybe by 20 degrees. It was a shock to move to California and discover that temps easily varied that much between the daytime and the nighttime. I got used to it, but it took awhile.

Hekate

[LanternWaste]

10. It gets cold in the tropics often...?

It gets cold in the tropics often...?

[WriteDown]

Cold enough for post 9. nt

[LanternWaste]

15. I'm sure there's central air conditioning above the arctic circle too.

Never knew anyone in Cancun when I lived there with central heating-- they'd scoff at it (but then again, I imagine vacationing American tourists would want it just to say they've got it...). I'm sure there's central air conditioning above the arctic circle too. Absurd? Sure-- but most likely there in numbers little more than aberrations.

Those frigid February temps of 72 degrees were certainly hard to live through...

One should know the difference between an aberration and a norm before basing a position on it. :shrug:

[Bacchus39]

21. sure does. ever hear of the Andes?

I doubt Cuba needs heat though. maybe some blankets might be a good idea though.

[Psephos]

12. True. For example, I've never seen the Ass. Pukes mention Clínico Quirúrgico in Havana

Castro himself held it up as an example of good hospital services after it was remodeled and upgraded.

"Now, the old hospital has turned into one of the most modern and best ones in the capital. I should explain that this hospital provided services to a large number of people who live at the other side of the Almendares River." ... "Not only did the number of beds increase, with blocks and civil construction spreading throughout almost 30,000 square meters of construction, but the power unit is totally new-boilers, electric power generators, etc.<">

http://www.gentiuno.com/articulo.asp?articulo=2167

Plenty of pictures at that link showing what the A.P. ignored.

[Billy Burnett]

16. Fake photos from the real cuba dot com.

Those photos are not even from Cuba. The Miami Herald/el Nuevo Herald both published retractions that they were not photos from Cuban hospitals after they printed those pictures lifted from the real cuba dot com. Not the first time they've published faked Cuba photos either.

[Psephos]

17. Umm, the photos are by María Elena Morejón. Google for plenty more by her.

She can rightly be said to have an agenda.

So can everyone else.

I posted in response to Peace Patriot's glowing, Disneyesque description of Cuban medicine. The truth is that Cuban medicine's strength is in its personnel, not its facilities. The majority of Cuban facilities are adequate. Some are decidedly not. That's hardly surprising given the sclerotic Cuban economy.

I can also post some pretty depressing photos of V.A. facilities in the US. Does that prove that V.A. hospitals are a disgrace? No, it shows that there is room for improvement, and in a few cases, drastic need for improvement. Same as in Cuba - which is my whole point.

[Billy Burnett]

20. She's an anti Cuba propagandist.

The real cuba dot com posted pictures of dilapidated hospital scenes claiming that they were of Cuba - but they were taken in Chile and Mexico. The Miami Herald/el Nuevo Herald issued a correction after they used the pictures (taken from the real cuba dot com website) in one of their prerequisite anti Cuba screeds.

I'm not disagreeing with your final basic point - improvements can be and need be made in any and all aspects of health care everywhere, but Cuba does a mighty fine job marshaling their resources fairly and for all.

I just thought that you should know that those pictures posted in the link you provided to give DUers a glimpse of a Cuban hospital are faked (wrongly identified) from elsewhere.

There's a lot of bullshit spread around willingly, and some unknowingly, about Cuba by an organized mob of anti Cuba propagandists on the payroll.

Cheers

[boppers]

18. FREE HEALTH CARE*

*which may include dying in a cold hospital.

[Hannah Bell]

19. says the person who thinks rich haitians get worse medical care than homeless people in the USA.

[boppers]

23. Oh, Haiti's great right now.

Haven't you heard?

[Mika]

11. Read the article. Its a "some people say" kind of report. From a US paid "dissident".

No links to any real government report on this (although, lots o' Cubanet/AP regurgitated links to this hearsay "report").

But, anyway, since some people say so (Commission head Elizardo Sanchez said that ....) - it must be true. :eyes:

---

[Peace Patriot]

14. Good point, Mika! I didn't catch that. nt

[barb162]

13. Where the hell are the blankets?

[lynne]

22. Looks like this free health care doesn't include blankets. Or heat.

- Guess they didn't read the fine print about bringing your own linens and heater.

[daleo]

25. Here's a capitalist outrage about nursing homes

J&J alleged to have paid kickbacks

Federal prosecutors in Boston said Friday that health care giant Johnson & Johnson (JNJ-N64.56-0.54-0.83%) paid tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks so nursing homes would put more patients on its blockbuster schizophrenia drug.

In a complaint filed Friday in Boston, prosecutors said J&J paid the kickbacks, in the form of special rebates and other payments, to Omnicare Inc. (OCR-N25.66-0.27-1.04%) , the country's biggest dispenser of prescription drugs in nursing homes. Prosecutors allege Omnicare pharmacists then recommended that nursing home patients with signs of Alzheimer's disease be put on the powerful schizophrenia drug Risperdal.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/jj-alleged-to-have-paid-kickbacks/article1432378/
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The drug in question is known to increase risk of death in the elderly.