IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 59

clinic’s sub-director told me that if I
procured the gloves, they would offer
me the service I required. There are
restrictive regulations. One is assigned
the hospital center for one’s treatment
according to the municipality in which
one lives. If that hospital’s equipment is
broken, one has to wait till it is repaired,
because no other hospital will take you,
unless you have friends with a certain
degree of connections, money or prestige
in the mass media. Medical exams are
not enough for an adequate diagnosis,
especially at those hospital centers that
serve the ordinary public. Most
treatments are by trial and error. A
correct diagnosis almost always comes
about after the problem has become
chronic. The possibilities of preventive
medicine are no more than a statistic.
There is always talk about how low our
infant mortality rates are; this is one of
the statistics most often mentioned in
speeches. Yet, cases of cancer, diabetes,
and other degenerative diseases among
children are on the rise.
The.social.wear.and.tear,.and gratuities
The truth is that old folks depend on
their families to survive, even if they get
a retirement pension. Why? Because
their pensions are not robust enough to
cover even basic needs. This is why one
sees old people selling peanuts,
handmade candies and other products
they procure, sometimes illegally, on the
street, near stores and bus stops. They
stand on long lines at markets to buy
their food and are often not enrolled in
senior center programs, at continued
education programs for seniors, or

enjoying the fruits of their long work
lives. Members of this generation of
workers who are now part of the retired
class, those who lived during the early
times of the Cuban revolution, explain
that back when they received their
salaries, they would also receive a paper
receipt indicating different discounts
they would be entitled to— free medical
care and education, as well as a
retirement pension and other subsidies.
They say that the now expired union
leader Lázaro Peña even proposed that
such notifications were unnecessary: that
the discounts should be applied
automatically. From that moment on,
workers ceased being aware of the fact
that they contributed to the covering of
these ͽ