You won't find any posts by me bragging about the US health care system. Physicians, patients, government, third party payers, industry, et al....all have broken the medical system. It's in tatters.
your reporting a first person account becomes a third person account to the reader. keep that in mind.
The WHO data is provided to WHO by Cuba's totalitarian government leaders. Cuba is a totalitarian regime. There is no First Amendment, no freedom of the press, no transparency, no accountability, no opposition. None of this is new information.
There are 3 levels of health care systems in Cuba: one for tourists, one for government leaders, one for the people.
For what its worth, physicians in Cuba earn $25 / month (US Dollars equivalent).
Most physicians in Cuba supplement their income by being taxi drivers, waiters at restaurants, or do "missionary" work to foreign countries for two reasons: it is good PR for Cuba, and it allows Cuban physicians to defect to other countries. the reason why Cuba has so many physicians (poorly educated, no advanced specialization, anyone gets to go to medical school) is because the Castro regime uses their physicians as trade: they provide physicians and Cuba in turn receives payment (e.g. Venezuela pays Cuba in petroleum for sending physicians to Venezuela)
If you ever go to Cuba, first you must deviate from your itinerary, walk the neighborhoods, enter the hospitals and speak to patients, staff and physicians.
Consider the data provided by Cubans underground :
Fabrication of First Misinformation About Cuba’s Public Health Achievements
“Facts pointing out successes during the colony and republic regarding public health have been systematically erased or distorted. Moreover, there are references to hemorrhagic dengue, peripheral neuritis and cholera in 1996–2013 reported to the world by dissidents, not by public health officials."
“The forced expansion of healthcare coverage and deceleration of integral health trends was due to the unnecessary and counterproductive take-over of the private, mutual and charity sectors by the state, with concentration of resources on national-transnational ideological, para-military, and military invasions and enterprises. The progressive decay of most nationalized industries and the ban on Cuban private firms and partnerships with Western firms in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and equipment industries have minimized public health and economic returns of investments in those industries. In 1985–2000 Cubans in progressively more miserable conditions reached physicians with insufficient resources to address their needs.”
other data sources from within Cuba underground:
then there is
Politifact.com
“….the combination of the Cuban government’s heavy-handed enforcement of statistical targets and the lack of transparency has led some experts to suggest taking the numbers with a grain of salt.”
Lastly, if you really want to understand the Cuban health care system, consider reading sources of information from within Cuba that are not sanctioned by the Cuban regime.
Here are some that have received international acclaim from human rights groups across the globe. Yoanni Sanchez is celebrated in many international forums but she is in Cuba and risks much to report what she sees.