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The Cuban Healthcare System

Decent Essays

Cuba is the largest island in Caribbean and known as one of the communist states in the world (Country Profile: Cuba, 2014). As of August 2016, the total population accounts to 11.3 million (Worldometers, 2016). Cuba’s life expectancy is 78 years, the longest life expectancy in America. The country was led by Fidel Castro for almost 50 years and his government established a one-party state, redistributed land, nationalized most of the economy, provided free education and health care and executed thousands of opponents (Country Profile: Cuba, 2014).

The development of Cuban healthcare system was started from the birth of its socialist government in the Revolution of 1959. Before this, majority of the Cuban was under the oppression of the Batista …show more content…

The government pledged to give the country a free quality healthcare system even with a limited resources. Their health care system is unique as compared to other countries because of bringing together the medical community and residential community which improves a person security as well as improving one’s mental health (The Development of the Cuban Health Care and Value System: Two Systems, One Ideology, …show more content…

The healthcare system is still in good standards even though there were reported cases of drug dependency and malnutrition. Our country has both private and public healthcare institutions. The only difference between the two are the facilities and technologies offered. Private hospitals have more and new equipment than public hospitals. However, many Filipinos still choose to consult to public doctors because of lesser consultation fee or free of charged (Healthcare in the Philippines, 2016).

In the documentary film entitled: Health Care Systems Around the World, controversies or problems in the healthcare system of Cuba were mentioned. Some of these are poor conditions of the hospitals, shortage of equipment and doctors are being paid only at an average of 15 US dollars per month. Further, there was also an article which said that the socialized medical system given to Cuban patients are free and this is a key propaganda tool of the Castro regime. The government has totally control and dictates public-health policies which shuts down private alternatives or independent organizations (Marty,

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