IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH february 2017 | Page 45

For instance, Alba Moreira is 94 years old and is struggling for life, but the government turned its back on denying her the ambulance service to the central hospital, despite having advanced rheumatism and countless diseases that keep her from walking. Her children and neighbors decided to take her on the first means of transportation they had on hand, since the hospital ' s response was that they had no fuel for the roadworthy ambulance and the other was broken. Thus, they left and traveled more than 2 km step by step to set an example of effort and help to the people in need. That was a neighborhood’ s Operation Miracle. I cannot explain why the doctors at the hospital prescribe drugs that are not for sale in the pharmacies, while nurses or other people are selling them on the street at higher prices. Everybody knows where these drugs are coming from: the very pharmacies where the doctors send their patients for them. Neither it’ s understandable that a patient has scheduled a visit to some specialist and the latter cannot attend the former because of a medical mission in Venezuela. Who will replace the doctors who went abroad? No one knows. There is no replacement, since the Cuban revolution needs its doctors to serve abroad and they must be where the authorities say and not where they are needed. For a surgical operation or a simple visit, the patient should bring to the specialist a high-priced gift, or enjoy a high social status, or simply being in rapport with the specialist or doctor on call. Otherwise, as it’ s happening to many, the patient must resign herself or himself to the fact that there is a waiting list, so long that some names are erased because the patient died from the very health condition required of medical attention. These incidents derive from the concept of revolution defined by Fidel Castro towards 2000: to change what must be changed. Only that they are changing the respect for human lives and for human rights into corruption by the authorities. Even the fuel allocated to services that must be provided to the population, like ambulance transportation, is sold on the black market to line the pockets of greedy people. It doesn’ t matter how much the rest of the people is affected. It is time to say enough, to change what must be changed: this system into another that respects the rights of a marginalized and betrayed people. It is time to put to work to continue the struggle for the well-being of all and to properly punish corruption.
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