Symbols of the socialist health care system pioneered by Fidel Castro, doctors and nurses are usually praised as “heroes in white coats” by the island’s state-run media.
In recent years Cuban health care workers have also become a key generator of hard currency for the communist-run government, which sells their services to countries that need doctors.
But as Cuba deals with shortages of medicines and oxygen and hospitals are overwhelmed with surging coronavirus cases, tensions between the government and health care workers –who are required to work for the state– have boiled over.
During a visit in August to the hard-hit province of Cienfuegos, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz blamed health care workers’ lack of discipline and “errors” for the breakdown in medical services.
Marrero acknowledged residents had complained about a lack of medicines as well but said “they are less than the complaints of mistreatment, of neglect or that [doctors] don’t make visits. That’s…