Comments on: Cuban health statistics

By: ChrisM

ChrisM — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:52:39 +0000

Span, if you hit f5 (or refresh) you get a cached version of the page and so new comments do not show. If you post a comment, it should show. To ensure you are seeing the latest version of the page you can add a “?” to the end of the URL and then any random sequence of letters and/or numbers. Because this represents an entirely new URL string, you will get the latest version.

By: Span Ows

Span Ows — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:52:09 +0000

Clearly not as my 2nd message appeared!

I posted a link to many photos:

http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

and mentioned that the guy responsible for many of the photos and truth about poor Cuba healthcare (except for party leaders and health tourists!) has ‘disappeared’ after he was arrested last week just before a march he ahd organised:

http://marcmasferrer.typepad.com/uncommon_sense/2009/07/cuban-police-arrest-darsi-ferrer-wife-cuba.html

By: Span Ows

Span Ows — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:47:29 +0000

Are comments modded/ revised before appearing? I can’t see what I just posted and didn’t get a “your comment will appear soon” of any other notice.

Anyway…visit The Real Cuba…

By: Span Ows

Span Ows — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:39:01 +0000

There’s more than enough if you Google but the most “concentrated” source is The Real Cuba: scroll down…it’s not very nice.

http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

By coincidence the person credited with exposing a lot and providing a lot of the photos has just been arrested:

http://marcmasferrer.typepad.com/uncommon_sense/2009/07/cuban-police-arrest-darsi-ferrer-wife-cuba.html

By: Peter Turner

Peter Turner — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:47:49 +0000

Sorry, here should read There

By: Peter Turner

Peter Turner — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:47:03 +0000

here were some photographs published on the NET some time ago when the idea that Cuba had a first class health service first went the rounds. The pictures were anything but assuring. Somebody must have seen them.

By: Dennis The Peasant

Dennis The Peasant — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 01:58:39 +0000

But isn’t Cuba one of the five or so happiest places on Earth?

By: Monty

Monty — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:29:30 +0000

The people of Cuba are in glorious health. They have to be. You have to a hardy, sturdy soul to put to sea in an old pneumatic tyre trying to escape.

Infant mortality- no problem.
Cancer- no problem.

Puncture….

By: Ross

Ross — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:52:35 +0000

Their stats might be true but it doesn’t indicate any “Cuban wonderful health care story”. Cuba’s health stats are worse now relative to the rest of the world than they were before the Castros took over.

For example Castro apologists often boast about Cuba’s infant mortality rate, which is around the 25th to 30th lowest in the world, quite impressive for a poor country, However in the 1950s Cuba had the 12th lowest infant mortality rate which kinds of puts the ‘achievement’ of Castrocare into perspective.

By: PC

PC — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:40:24 +0000

It's easier to fake stats than allocate resources efficiently.

By: john b

john b — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:29:44 +0000

@4 no, the point is that faking different, subtly related metrics consistently and undetectably over time is very difficult.

If you’re starting from the premise that the Cuban government isn’t very good, then it’s unlikely that they’ll have managed successfully to reproduce all real-life correlations between different variables in their fake stats.

By: AntiCitizenOne

AntiCitizenOne — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:14:23 +0000

If these pictures are real then Cuba’s lying.

http://therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

By: RW Rogers

RW Rogers — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:04:31 +0000

Look at birth and death figures, population, and see whether life spans really are as advertised? Check abortion numbers against infant mortality to see whether the low latter is caused by the high former?

As the sole source for all of those figures would be the Cuban government, it is “back to square one.”

By: PC

PC — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:44:25 +0000

Also, I’m fairly sure (can’t verify right now) that the WHO skews the scoring to favour equality of coverage in healthcare systems. So, if everyone receives equally shit treatment in one country then that place would score higher than somewhere where there is an overall higher level of treatment, but less equal distribution.

Tim adds: That’s true of one of their measures, yes (“best health care system”). But not of the ones I’m thinking about, infant mortality, average lifespan etc.

By: PC

PC — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:35:44 +0000

I would guess it’s pretty difficult to find reliable statistics for the Cuban system, but there are quite a few eyewitness reports, such as:

“Even the most commonly available pharmaceutical items in the U.S., such as Aspirin and rubbing alcohol, are conspicuously absent [in Cuba]… Antibiotics… are in extremely short supply and available only on the black market. Aspirin can be purchased only at government-run dollar stores, which carry common medications at a huge markup in U.S. dollars… This puts them out of reach of most Cubans, who are paid little and in pesos.”

http://www.cubaverdad.net/references/for_cubans_a_bitter_pill.htm

By: Giles

Giles — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:24:43 +0000

I wonder what UK life expectancy would be if most of the population was on ’40s style food rationing.