Healthcare of Cuba

The Cuban government operates a national health system and assumes fiscal and administrative responsibility for the health care of all its citizens. There are no private hospitals or clinics as all health services are government-run. The present Minister for Public Health is Roberto Morales Ojeda.

Like the rest of the Cuban economy, Cuban medical care suffered following the end of Soviet subsidies in 1991; the stepping up of the US embargo against Cuba at this time also had an effect.

Modern Western medicine has been practiced in Cuba by formally trained doctors since at least the beginning of the 19th century and the first surgical clinic was established in 1823. Cuba has had many world class doctors, including Carlos Finlay, whose mosquito-based theory of yellow fever transmission was given its final proof under the direction of Walter Reed, James Carroll, and Aristides Agramonte. During the period of U.S presence (1898–1902) yellow fever was essentially eliminated due to the efforts of Clara Maass and surgeon Jesse William Lazear.

In the 1950s the number of doctors per thousand of the population ranked above Britain, France and the Netherlands. In Latin America it ranked in third place after Uruguay and Argentina. There remained marked inequalities however. Most of Cuba's doctors were based in the relatively prosperous cities and regional towns, and conditions in rural areas, notably Oriente, were significantly worse. The mortality rate was the third lowest in the world. According to the World Health Organization, the island had the lowest infant mortality rate of Latin America.

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