Even with the much maligned U.S. embargo in place, there never seems to be any shortage of Castro propagandists here in America extolling the virtues of the Castro health care system. Unfortunately for them, neither has the embargo been able to stop photographic evidence of Cuba's actual medical system from getting out of the island. Evidence which illustrates the communist dictatorship's vaunted health care is at best in the category of a third-world country (see the Real Cuba). All this in spite of the fact that the U.S. embargo exempts medical supplies and medicine.

Cubanet.org has a citizen report (in Spanish) of the dilapidated condition of the non-tourist, non-government elite Joaquín Albarrán Clinical-Surgical Hospital in Havana. I could translate the report so you can learn about the unsanitary conditions there, how the medical personnel use one syringe to inject various patients, how patients have to bring their own sheets and pillows and even plastic tubing for oxygen.

I could translate how the hospital is infested with insects, how the hallways are inundated in water, how the elevators that do work are darkened because of burned out lights, or how the workers there treat patients and their families rudely and without compassion.

I could translate all those things, but a picture says it all much better:

Joaquín Albarrán Clinical-Surgical Hospital in Havana - 2011