Because of the implementation of the system of free health care for all, the health of the Cuban people has reached the level of developed countries. in 2007, the average life expectancy of Cuban men and women was 78 and 80 years old, respectively, and the neonatal mortality rate, the infant mortality rate, and the mortality rate of children under the age of 5 were 5 per 1,000, 6 per 1,000, and 7 per 1,000, respectively, and all the indicators are up to the level of the most developed countries.
A more convincing comparison is that all of these public **** health data are better than those of the United States of America, the world's leading power today, whose average life expectancy in 2007 was 77.99 years, 0.27 years lower than Cuba's, and whose neonatal infant mortality rate was 6 per 1,000 live births, and child mortality rate for children under 5 years of age, 7.6 per 1,000 live births, higher than that of Cuba. In the case of the family doctor system, for example, Cuba has the most family doctors per capita in the world, but it doesn't stop there.
For ordinary Cubans, they prefer to see the success of today's health care reform as the greatest miracle of Cuba's socialist construction.
Before the triumph of the Castro-led revolution in 1959, the distribution of health resources throughout the country was extremely unbalanced, with the countryside suffering from a lack of medical care and a shortage of medicines. Havana, the capital, which accounts for only 22 percent of the country's population, had 60 percent of the country's doctors and 80 percent of its beds, while the countryside had only a single hospital, and the government's health care coverage accounted for only 8 percent of the rural population. In the early days after the triumph of the revolution, healthcare reform was imminent. However, a large number of doctors fled the country at this time, adding to the existing difficulties. On the eve of the triumph of the revolution, there were more than 6,300 doctors in the country, but by 1963 the number had been halved, and from 1960 onwards, the United States embargo against Cuba cut off the country's traditional sources of medicine and medical equipment.
In this situation, Cuba's sanitation and health indicators declined, and some infectious diseases rebounded. At the same time, the rapid growth of the population has exacerbated the problem, and health care in Cuba is in dire straits.
In the face of this predicament, the Cuban government under the leadership of Fidel Castro has vigorously developed public **** medical care and worked hard to train medical personnel, making the country's per capita number of doctors among the world's highest. The Cuban government has invested more than 9% of its GDP in the production of medical equipment, instruments and medicines. Cuba has also reached a high level in the development of high technology in medicine. The treatment of organ transplants and some difficult diseases has reached the world's advanced level.
At present, the three-tier medical system covers the whole of Cuba. Small hospitals and polyclinics below the municipalities (counties) are the primary healthcare network, central hospitals in provincial capitals and important cities are the secondary healthcare network, and the national hospitals in the capital are the tertiary healthcare network. The "community health model", which is the basis of Cuba's free health care, has been progressively improved in the country.
Under this model, a family doctor is assigned to care for 120 families in a given neighborhood. Normally, patients go to this designated family doctor first. Typically, Cubans are treated at community hospitals for minor ailments such as colds and fevers. Only in cases of need are they directed by their own family doctors to secondary or tertiary hospitals for specialized treatment.
Because most patients have already been triaged and cured at the first two levels of care, and don't need to go to the main hospitals, Cuba's main hospitals are never as crowded as China's, and there are often even some empty beds in the wards. The waiting halls are clean and quiet, and there are not many patients waiting to be seen, so you don't need to register and go directly to the reception desk.
Because Cuba's medical care is truly free, there are no price-checking or charging offices in the hospitals, as is common in Chinese hospitals. In Cuban hospitals, everything from vision tests to MRIs and ultrasounds is free. If you need to be hospitalized, not only do you not have to pay for treatment, surgery and medicine, but your bed and food are also free. The hospital also prepares special meals according to the patient's particular situation, and family members accompanying the patient have a place to rest. However, in Cuba, foreigners' visits to the doctor are strictly separated from those of nationals, and foreigners can't visit the doctor in Cuba for free.
Cuba also has a system of separation of medicines, in which the doctor writes a prescription after conducting a series of tests on the patient. Instead of picking up the medicine at the hospital, the patient takes the prescription to a pharmacy in his or her neighborhood. When Cubans talk about doctors, they feel very friendly: "Doctors are like friends, and we are very willing to talk to them about family matters." Cubans do not give doctors "red packets" phenomenon, and there is no "number of traffickers" phenomenon.