Follow Cubanos por el Mundo and choose us as a preferred source.
Yaikel Daniel Reyes Ortiz, a 9-year-old boy from Los Cayos, in the municipality of Yara in Granma province, arrived in Havana on Oct. 21 for another spine operation. His family says the surgery still has not taken place.
His parents sent Cubanos por el Mundo X-rays and photos of the boy, who has kyphoscoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine both forward and to the side. Since he was 6, he has been seen every three months at the William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Havana.
His wait comes as Cuba’s health sector plans to scale back surgery because it uses a lot of electricity and resources, keeping only urgent and life-saving operations, according to a document from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
His surgeon left for Mexico, family says
According to his parents, Yaikel was due back in the operating room in late October. The doctor in charge of his case left for Mexico, and the hospital was unable to operate.
Cubanos por el Mundo has not been able to confirm this with the hospital or with Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health, and has found no public statement from the hospital about the case.
The boy has already had two of the six operations his parents say his treatment calls for. The X-rays the family sent show a rod fixed to his spine with screws.
The family also sent a photo showing an open wound on the skin of the boy’s back. The original image carries a date stamp of May 11, 2026, and reached Cubanos por el Mundo on Nov. 10.
How to help Yaikel Daniel Reyes Ortiz
While they wait in Havana, far from home, his parents are asking for help with food and medicine. Yaikel also has a wish of his own: a bicycle.
Follow Cubanos por el Mundo and choose us as a preferred source.
Anyone who wants to help can contact the family directly: his mother, Yanai, at +53 5912 8139, or his father at +53 5164 7037. Cubanos por el Mundo is not raising money for this case and is not acting as an intermediary.
Fewer surgeries and fewer hospital staff
The measure appears in a public health situation analysis on Cuba that PAHO dated March 31, 2026, which examines the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa amid the island’s energy constraints. Citing a Ministry of Public Health note, the document lists reducing surgical activity and maintaining surgeries that are urgent and life-saving among the sector’s measures. It also calls for reducing staff in health institutions “without compromising the quality of care.”
The William Soler hospital had already drawn complaints from families about a lack of care last year (in Spanish). This week, a father in Matanzas asked for his 2-year-old son with retinoblastoma to be urgently transferred to Havana (in Spanish).
What we know so far
- Yaikel is 9, lives in Los Cayos (Yara, Granma) and has kyphoscoliosis.
- Since he was 6, he has been seen every three months at the William Soler Pediatric Hospital.
- He has had two of the six planned operations, according to his family.
- He has been in Havana since Oct. 21; according to his family, the new surgery has not been performed.
- Cubanos por el Mundo has found no public statement from the hospital or the Ministry of Public Health about the case.
How we reported this story
Yaikel’s family sent Cubanos por el Mundo the details of the case, their phone numbers and the images in this story on Nov. 10, 2026, and asked that they be published. The photo of the wound carries a date stamp of May 11, 2026. We confirmed that Los Cayos is a community in the municipality of Yara. In Cuba, hospitals are run by the Ministry of Public Health and, in this newsroom’s experience, do not respond to questions from independent media, so it was not possible to ask the William Soler hospital for comment. Nor could we confirm by other means that the operation was postponed or that the specialist left.
We used artificial intelligence tools (policy in Spanish) to research, check image rights and review the text, always under the supervision of our editors, who checked each fact against its source. This English version was translated from the original Spanish story.
If you have information about this case, send it to us through this form. If you spot an error, see our corrections policy.
Follow Cubanos por el Mundo and choose us as a preferred source.
