Duration - 34:59
[A video podcast about Cuba from the podcast team Cuba Analysis Podcasts]
What does economic warfare look like from inside a hospital?
Cuba Analysis speaks to doctors and patients at Havana’s Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital about the impact of the US blockade on Cuba’s healthcare system.
Since 2019, successive US administrations have pursued a policy of ‘maximum pressure’ against Cuba. In 2026, Washington intensified those measures, including restrictions on fuel imports and aggressive extraterritorial sanctions. On 29 January and 1 May, President Trump issued executive orders declaring Cuba to be a threat to US national security.
Cubans are dying, not because of a lack of doctors but because of the US blockade. Since 2019, Cuba’s infant mortality rate has risen by 148%, while the survival rate for children with cancer has fallen from 85% to 65%. More than 100,000 Cubans are waiting for surgery, including over 12,000 children. Treatments and surgeries are being delayed; ageing equipment cannot be repaired or replaced; and more than 7,000 shipping containers carrying medical supplies, food, and solar panels are stranded at foreign ports because of the threat of US sanctions and tariffs. Cuba’s latest report to the UN General Assembly calculates that the US blockade has cost the island over $8 billion just between March 2025 and February 2026.
The doctors we interview explain what those figures means in practice. A radio-oncologist describes reducing daily treatments from 250 patients to just 30, with many travelling 200 kilometres for radiotherapy. A cardiologist speaks about patients waiting years for pacemakers. A nephrologist reports that one-third of the hospital’s haemodialysis machines are out of service. A dialysis patient describes the extraordinary efforts the doctors make to find alternatives when essential supplies are unavailable. We also hear about the psychological toll of the threat of US military action, and the exhausting daily struggle with electricity blackouts, the lack of transport, and rising prices.
Trump and Rubio claim to be acting in the interests of the Cuban people, but their economic warfare is a form of collective punishment, which is illegal under international law. Recently, Rubio admitted the real motivations behind the policy: ‘Every time they create a new mechanism in which they try to get out of the noose, we just close it off.’
The doctors in this report expose the healthcare costs of that policy.
