Annals of Government Medicine

Today’s report comes from Cuba, whose health care system is widely praised by liberals. That praise is based on bogus statistics produced by Castro’s government, but on a best-case scenario, it had better not get cold:

Cuba handed lengthy prison terms to 13 workers at a mental hospital where 26 patients died in a cold snap a year ago that embarrassed a government that prides itself on its health care. …
According to the official account, 26 patients died when temperatures on the tropical island plunged to 3.9 degrees Celsius (39 degrees Fahrenheit) beginning on January 9, 2010. …
Hospital employees told the press at the time that the patients were undernourished and had no blankets because the hospital’s supplies had been stolen by people who worked there.
Clinical evaluations of the victims found signs of malnutrition, a high incidence of anemia and vitamin deficiencies, according to the official report, which said the hospital received enough food for 2,458 patients when there were only 1,484 patients, the official report said. It added that an absence of controls “favored the misappropriation of resources destined fundamentally for the nourishment of the patients, as well as for clothing and bedding for their protection.”

Mental hospitals where the patients have no blankets and are malnourished because unaccountable government employees stole their food to sell it on the black market–that’s government medicine in action.

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