Cuba Sees 185x More 'Preventable Deaths' with Healthcare System

An independent study conducted by the Cuban Observatory for Citizen Auditing (OCAC) and published on Monday by the Madrid-based Cuba Siglo 21 think tank found that the communist regime is severely downplaying the number of preventable deaths caused by an ongoing epidemiological crisis.

According to the study, titled “The Collapse of Cuba’s Healthcare System,” at least 8,700 Cubans have died as a result of a simultaneous occurrence and intensification of several diseases such as Dengue, Zika, and Chikungunya — a number that is 185 times higher than the 47 deaths that the Castro regime has publicly acknowledged.

The study found that these preventable deaths are the “most visible and striking expression” of the collapse of Cuba’s healthcare system under the communist Castro regime.

OCAC, an independent civil society organization, prefaced its report by stating that its findings allow the organization to state, “without ambiguity,” that the collapse of the Cuban health system is not due to “inevitable fate, external factors, exceptional epidemiological contingencies, or adverse climatic events,” but that it is instead a direct consequence of the Castro regime’s policies, which have progressively dismantled the Cuban state’s essential capacities to protect the health and lives of its population.

For years, Cuba’s healthcare system experienced a state of utter collapse as a result of more than six decades’ worth of disastrous communist policies that have pushed the island nation to the brink of complete ruin.

The severe lack of proper healthcare access, widespread shortages of medicine and supplies, and numerous other shortcomings have left Cubans deprived of proper means to face arboviruses such as dengue, chikungunya, and oropouche. The dramatic situation has significantly worsened in recent weeks as a result of the ongoing spread of said viruses through the population, further overwhelming Cuba’s barely functional hospitals.

OCAC stressed that the Cuban regime’s inability to sustain basic services such as garbage collection and lack of proper protein availability has created the “ideal” conditions to the spread of arboviruses in Cuba, allowing the epidemic to spread not just because of the presence of the virus itself, but also “because it matched with a devastated health system and a deeply deteriorated social and environmental setting.”

“The evidence shows a systematic failure to fulfill this responsibility to protect the population. In the 21st century, the populist welfare state gave way to an extractive oligarchic state. Since then, the totalitarian and oligarchic Cuban state has not only been unable to guarantee the right to health, food, and a healthy environment, but has also ceased to be interested in fulfilling this principle,” the report read.

“It has deliberately maintained a model that reproduces vulnerability: chronic disinvestment in public health, massive exportation of medical personnel, neglect of health and environmental infrastructure, and manipulation of epidemiological information to minimize the political cost of the disaster,” the report continued.

OCAC stressed that, while the Castro regime will celebrate the centennial of late murderous dictator Fidel Castro in 2026, its population will face a reality marked by disease, hunger, and blackouts. The report noted that earlier this month, Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, called the ongoing chikungunya epidemic ravaging the country “explosive,” describing the adjective as a “euphemism that hides the true magnitude of an epidemiological crisis that combines nine different viruses, plus various diarrhea and hepatitis epidemics.”

The communist regime’s refusal to acknowledge the true magnitude of the nation’s health crisis and allow independent cooperation mechanisms, OCAC stressed, further reinforces the political dimension of the damage caused. Citizen audits have determined that at least 3 million Cubans — 30 percent of the nation’s remaining 9.7 million inhabitants — have fallen ill this year. The proper diagnosis of arboviruses is further complicated by a lack of laboratory reagents, which leads to instances of clinical diagnoses under the category of “nonspecific febrile syndrome.”

“This citizen audit has estimated, based on moderate calculations, the number of deaths based on these official figures, as well as on international parameters,” OCAC explained. “The result of this calculation indicates that the number of deaths would reach at least 8,700. This shows that the state has lied again (as it did with the Covid-19 epidemic) by claiming that only 47 deaths had occurred by mid-December. The reality would be, at a minimum, 185 times greater.”

The already dramatic situation is further worsened by the delicate state of Cuba’s hospitals. OCAC detailed that doctors from various Cuban provinces have reported a lack of supplies and essential resources such as ventilators, X-ray machines, intravenous supplies, and other equipment — further exacerbated by a lack of basic hygienic conditions such as bathrooms without water and continuous power outrages and a lack of capacity to guarantee minimum asepsis clean conditions that further puts the lives of patients at risk.

The severe shortages force the recycling of disposable items and shifts the burden onto patients, who must purchase medicine and supplies through informal markets. Doctors consulted by OCAC informed that pharmacies have not received pediatric syrups “for years.” Statistical data cited by the report indicates that 255 of the 395 drugs that the state-run BioCubaFarma company was supposed to supply to the country are missing.

In addition to shortages of medicine and supplies, the collapsed Cuban healthcare system also faces a shortage of healthcare staff. OCAC noted that Cuba lost over 30,000 doctors between 2021 and 2024. Hospitals experienced a reduction of over 7,000 functional beds during that same time period. Despite the continued shortages of doctors at home, OCAC noted that the Castro regime continues to send thousands of slave doctors abroad to generate foreign income at the expense of structural gaps in the nation’s system.

“The state’s responsibility to protect the population is not limited to preventing direct violence; it also includes the obligation not to subject the population to structural conditions that deliberately and progressively destroy life, health, and human dignity,” OCAC said. “Keeping millions of people in a state of malnutrition, health vulnerability, and exposure to epidemiological risks is a brutal form of structural violence exercised by those in power.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.