Only those who practice their profession with deep love and ethics know how difficult it is to tell families that an alternative medication or procedure must be applied or to delay treatment while waiting for the right one. This is one of the problems caused to pediatric services in Las Tunasby the U.S. blockade.
Las Tunas, Cuba - This is the feeling of several health professionals, who reflected in interviews to the Cuban News Agency that beyond the reports that count the ravages of this hostile policy imposed on Cuba more than six decades ago, the Mártires de Las Tunas Pediatric Hospital is one of those places that are sensibly affected, where in addition, a daily and historical struggle is lived to safeguard the lives of hundreds of infants in this eastern Cuban province.
For Juan Rafael Pino de los Reyes, a second-degree specialist and pediatric nephrologist, to talk about the limitations caused by the blockade in the hemodialysis rooms, for example, is to make a general account of all the demands of a very expensive service with high use of expendable material such as this one.
"At the moment, there are two children in our center who need a type of dialyzer with a more appropriate size for their ages, and although the medical procedure does not run any risk by using an older one, we know that the right one could make the process more bearable and faster, Pino de los Reyes told ACN.
"We have resorted to recovering these dialyzers and other supplies, in addition to the fact that we lack hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis catheters, needles, and basic medications such as prednisone or vitamin supplements, all with the particularity that in pediatric ages we need implements that are much friendlier to the bodies and organisms of the most sensitive patients," he stressed.
Yicenia Díaz Cabrera, a young specialist of First Degree in Hematology, says that in her service there is limited access to medicines, many basic monoclonal antibodies for the diagnosis of brain tumors, or other specific ones for infants who suffer from coagulopathies and require preparations such as Factor 8.
"Oncohematology," she added, "in addition to the expertise of its physicians to make accurate diagnoses, requires important supplies, especially in chemotherapy for the treatment of lymphoblastic leukemias, more frequent in children, as well as the use of modern equipment such as the flow cytometer, which currently only exists at the Institute of Hematology and Immunology, in the capital of the country."
Meanwhile, Santa Gutiérrez and Miguel Cano are, from Anesthesiology, the effective guarantee that the most complicated procedures, in any specialty, are successfully completed, which is why they know very well the limitations that the imposition of this economic, commercial and financial siege causes to Cuban medicine, which is more inhumane than economic, commercial and financial.
"The anesthesia machines themselves, which are imported and there are no spare parts because Cuba cannot have access to them if they say 'Made in the USA'; endotracheal tubes, muscle relaxants, appropriate supplies for neonatal surgeries, medicines and even the infrastructure of the rooms themselves, are on the long list of the affected items," both experts agreed.
In the Miscellaneous B ward, its head, Yanelys Utra Peña, the first thing she talks about is the sensitivity involved in working with pediatric patients, hence the complexity of lacking expendable materials such as gloves, syringes, plasters, plus the structural difficulties that interfere in the optimal stay, often prolonged, of children with renal diseases.
But giving up is not an option, and the spirit of resistance of the people, which is also manifested in their Health System, overcomes the evident affectations. With each treatment or procedure that concludes with success, with the dedication of each one of these professionals, with the smiles of the grateful families, and with love, the Pediatrics of Las Tunas dodges the blockade.