More than 32,000 pregnant women at risk due to fuel blockade against Cuba 

More than 32,880 pregnant women will face additional risks, threats, and limitations as a result of the U.S. government's energy blockade against Cuba, while other vital services for newborns, minors, diabetics, cancer patients, and those in need of surgery or emergency care are being seriously affected as the days go by.

This has been revealed by the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, which, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, has been making enormous efforts to alleviate the multiple challenges in order to guarantee vital services to the population, in the midst of a brutal economic war that directly impacts people's lives.

The fuel shortage is affecting priority maternal and child health care, with limitations that include difficulties for pregnant women in accessing obstetric ultrasounds to monitor fetal well-being and genetics for the timely diagnosis of malformations.

It also causes limitations in the mobilization of commissions for the care of extremely severe maternal morbidity and critical neonates, delays in the childhood vaccination schedule, and puts at risk the lives of children with special needs (home ventilation, mechanical aspiration, and air conditioning), among other problems, such as the very limited availability of medical transport for the care of urgent and emergency cases.

These effects could have a significant impact on the more than 61,830 children under one year of age who require special care in this early stage of life.

In addition, it limits care to medical emergencies, cancer patients, and follow-up on programs for chronic noncommunicable and communicable diseases, which directly increases mortality in the country.

The new arbitrary measures against the Cuban people will continue to increase the difficulties in obtaining medicines, supplies, reagents, consumables, medical instruments, as well as the purchase of equipment and spare parts, or will affect, in some way, the overall vitality of hospitals, special wards, operating rooms, and intensive care units.

In this regard, the decrease in the frequency of commercial flights and the increase in freight prices make it difficult to access medicines and other essential resources in the health system, including those that are transported on an emergency basis.

In the face of the challenges described above and many others, which we will expand on in future comments, Cuban health personnel and institutions are working day and night to ensure that our people receive the medical care and human support they have always provided, which has become an inalienable achievement, no matter how difficult the circumstances caused by the intensification of the economic war, which resorts to the crime of depriving a country of fuel and putting the lives of millions of people at risk.