NY Times: Cubans Dying in U.S. Oil Blockade

The New York Times has today published a front-page, in-depth article that lays out how the U.S. oil blockade is killing Cubans.

Six Cuban doctors told the Times that rapidly deteriorating conditions at hospitals and clinics across Cuba were causing deaths that would otherwise be preventable.

“I can’t tell you how many deaths, but I’m sure there are more than in the same period last year,” said Dr. Alioth Fernández, chief anesthesiologist at Havana’s William Soler Pediatric Hospital. “I see it in shift handovers, in colleagues’ comments and in children I’ve operated on.”

Public health experts connected the dots between the U.S. government's economic warfare and deteriorating healthcare in Cuba.

“This is not subtle, this is extreme,” Paul Spiegel, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins University, told The Times. “You’re already seeing hospitals changing how they are operating.” 

The infant mortality rate has more than doubled in the last seven years due to maximum pressure sanctions first imposed by Trump in 2019. The impact of the oil blockade “will likely be exponentially more severe," Ruth Gibson, a Stanford University doctor who studies the impact of sanctions on public health, told The Times.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the documentary Belly of the Beast produced with one of the article’s authors last year for Al Jazeera: Health Under Sanction.