Humberto Fontova :: Townhall.com Columnist
Cuba's Free and Fabulous Healthcare
by Humberto Fontova
Back in August 2009 BB (Before Scott Brown) CNN was frantically
producing infomercials for Obama's healthcare plan. Lucky for them
Michael Moore had a handy supply of valuable footage from his
infomercials for Castro's healthcare plan.
So on the August 6 edition of CNN's "Newsroom," while Morgan Neil
"reported" on location from a Potemkin Havana hospital, gushing about
Cuban healthcare's "impressive statistics!" the broadcast included clips
from Michael Moore's Sicko, adding much oomph to the propaganda montage.
CNN's "Cuba's infant mortality rates," reported Neil, "are the lowest in
the hemisphere, in line with those of Canada!"
Sean Hannity FREE
"Amazing!" probably gasped the type of person who watches CNN nowadays
"No wonder Colin Powell said "Castro had done some good things for his
people!" No wonder Barbara Walters hailed Castro for "bringing great
healthcare to his people!" No wonder Michael Moore catches so much grief
from those insufferable Miami Cubans! Before Castro only they could
afford doctors, as Cuba's huddled masses languished in sickness and
poverty!"
And indeed, according to UN figures, Cuba's current infant mortality
rate places her 44th from the top in worldwide ranking, right next to
Canada (the lower the rate the higher the ranking).
What CNN left out is that according to those same UN figures, in 1958
(the year prior to the glorious revolution), Cuba ranked 13th from the
top, worldwide. This meant that robustly capitalist Cuba had the 13th
lowest infant-mortality rate in the world. This put her not only at the
top in Latin America but atop most of Western Europe, ahead of France,
Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain and
Portugal. Today all of these countries leave Communist Cuba in the dust,
with much lower infant mortality rates.
And even plummeting from 13th (Capitalist) to 44th (Communist), Cuba's
"impressive" infant mortality rate is kept artificially low by Communist
chicanery with statistics and by a truly appalling abortion rate of 0.71
abortions per live birth. This is the hemisphere's highest, by far. Any
Cuban pregnancy that even hints at trouble gets "terminated."
In April 2001, Dr. Juan Felipe García, MD, of Jacksonville, Fla.,
interviewed several recent doctor defectors from Cuba. Based on what he
heard, he reported the following:
"The official Cuban infant-mortality figure is a farce. Cuban
pediatricians constantly falsify figures for the regime. If an infant
dies during its first year, the doctors often report he was older.
Otherwise, such lapses could cost him severe penalties and his job."
This might lead a few people to question Cuba's official
infant-mortality figures. But such people would not get a Havana bureau
for their news agency, much less a visa to film a documentary.
According to a report by the Association of American Physicians and
Surgeons, more than 75% of "doctors" with Cuban "medical degrees" flunk
the exam given by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical
Graduates for licensing in the U.S. Most Cuba-certified doctors even
flunk the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates' exam for
certification as "physician assistants," making them unfit even as
nurses. None of this is meant to disparage these hapless men and women
who were simply cursed by fate to be born under a Stalinist tyranny.
Ninety-nine percent of Cubans have no more experience with hospitals
like the one Michael Moore featured in Sicko and CNN's Morgan Neill
visited, than Moore has with a Soloflex. Most Cubans view these
hospitals the way teenage boys used to view Playboy magazine and
husbands view a Victoria's Secret catalog: "Wow! If only. . ."
The Castroite propaganda in Sicko so outraged people cursed by fate to
live in Castro's fiefdom that they risked their lives by using hidden
cameras to film conditions in genuine Cuban hospitals, hoping they could
alert the world to Moore's swinishness as a propaganda operative for a
Stalinist regime.
At enormous risk, two hours of shocking, often revolting, footage was
obtained with tiny hidden cameras and smuggled out of Cuba to
Cuban-exile George Utset, who runs the superb and revelatory website The
Real Cuba. The man who assumed most of the risk during the filming and
smuggling was Cuban dissident -- a medical doctor himself – Dr. Darsi
Ferrer, who was also willing to talk on camera, narrating much of the
video's revelations. Dr Ferrer worked in these genuinely Cuban hospitals
daily, witnessing the truth. More importantly, he wasn't cowed from
revealing this truth to America and the world. (A recent samizdat
reports that the black Dr. Ferrer is currently languishing in a Cuban
prison cell --not far from Gitmo, by the way-- undergoing frequent beatings.
Originally, ABC's John Stossel planned to show the shocking smuggled
videos in their entirety, during a 20/20 show. Alas, on Sept. 12th 2007,
the 20/20 show ran only a tiny segment on Cuba's "real" healthcare,
barely 5 minutes long and with almost none of the smuggled video
footage. What happened?
Well, the Castro regime got wind of these videos and called in ABC's
Havana bureau for a little talking-to, stressing that ABC's "bureau
permit" might face "closer scrutiny" if they showed the blockbuster
videos. ABC wimped out.
Enter Fox News, and Sean Hannity in particular. Your humble servant here
contacted Hannity's producers regarding the smuggled videos and they
immediately requested a look. Within hours they jumped on them and
produced a blockbuster of a show. Seen here. And here. Fox viewers saw
naked patients covered with flies while lying on "hospital beds"
consisting of a bare mattress. They saw a building that would be
condemned by the health board of any U.S. municipality serving as
"hospitals." They saw and heard Dr. Darsi Ferrer along with other Cubans
who described their inability to obtain something so basic as aspirin.
In case some have forgotten, Cuba is a totalitarian state almost
perfectly patterned on the Stalinist model. I say "almost" because in
the early stage Castro and Che deviated somewhat by actually jailing
more political prisoners per-capita than Stalin. As such, material
rewards are granted exclusively by the regime and relentless
police-state control is the regime priority.
"Health care" is important only so far as a function to bamboozle
foreign press agencies, academics and filmmakers (which has proven a
laughable cakewalk). So the rewards issued by Castro's Stalinist regime
to Cuba's doctors (a monthly salary of $22) are dwarfed by those awarded
to the dedicated and intrepid staff of Cuba's Ministry of the Interior.
(spies/secret police.) These latter perform the vital functions in
maintaining the viability of Castro's fiefdom.
Humberto Fontova : Cuba's Free and Fabulous Healthcare - Townhall.com
(23 February 2010)
http://townhall.com/columnists/HumbertoFontova/2010/02/23/cuba%E2%80%99s_free_and_fabulous_healthcare
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