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A pregnant woman in severe pain was pushed on a wheeled stretcher along the Vía Blanca highway to the Hijas de Galicia maternity hospital in Havana in the early hours of Friday, October 30, a witness told Cubanos por el Mundo.
The trip began near the area known as El Central, in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, according to the account, which reached our newsroom through WhatsApp along with a photo of the scene.
What the witness saw
“A pregnant woman in extreme pain, they were taking her to Hijas de Galicia along the whole Vía Blanca on a stretcher,” wrote the person who sent the image, in a message translated from Spanish.
The witness also regretted that no one had been able to record what was happening: “Too bad they couldn’t get a video. This photo is all I have.”
The photo shows the stretcher stopped on the asphalt in near-total darkness. A woman holds up the IV bag connected to the patient, next to a man in a blue medical uniform, while two other people stand beside them. No ambulance is visible in the frame.
What is still unknown about the transfer to Hijas de Galicia
As of publication, Cubanos por el Mundo has not been able to confirm the woman’s identity, the condition of her or her baby, or why she was not taken by ambulance.
Neither Havana’s Provincial Health Directorate nor Hijas de Galicia, the obstetrics and gynecology hospital in the Luyanó neighborhood of the Diez de Octubre municipality, has offered any explanation so far.
Hijas de Galicia, officially the Diez de Octubre University Gynecological and Obstetric Hospital, provides gynecological, obstetric and pediatric care to residents of Diez de Octubre and San Miguel del Padrón, where the stretcher set out. Founded in 1924 by the Hijas de Galicia mutual aid society, it is also Havana’s referral center for newborns weighing less than 1,500 grams, about 3.3 pounds.
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Patients reaching Cuban hospitals on their own
The scene adds to a string of recent reports about Cuban patients who have to get to the hospital by their own means. This week, Cubanos por el Mundo reported the case of a mother from Cárdenas who had to carry her son with a broken arm to Matanzas (in Spanish) because her municipality lacked supplies and ambulances. We also reported on a cancer patient who has waited a month for a cystoscopy at Abel Santamaría Hospital.
Care for pregnant women has drawn complaints as well. In Santiago de Cuba, several hospitalized expectant mothers reported meager food rations (in Spanish), and in August an elderly man died on a street in that city (in Spanish) after spending hours without medical help.
What the UN warned about ambulances in Cuba
The problem is not new. In May, the United Nations warned that fuel shortages in Cuba were limiting ambulance services and delaying access to critical care, and that more than 32,000 pregnant women faced heightened risks because of limited access to diagnostics, transport and stable electricity.
The warning followed a three-day visit to the island by Edem Wosornu, of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and Altaf Musani, of the World Health Organization. Wosornu said that in some hospitals “staff have to carry water up the stairs while women give birth since pumps don’t work.” The UN also reported that blackouts of up to 20 hours had forced hospitals to suspend non-emergency operations and that more than 100,000 patients, including 11,000 children, were waiting for postponed surgeries.
If you know this woman or how her trip to the hospital ended, you can write to Cubanos por el Mundo to help us complete this story.
Read this story in Spanish: Embarazada con fuertes dolores es llevada en camilla por la Vía Blanca hasta Hijas de Galicia, denuncia un testigo.
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