Stop praising Castro for health and education 'advances'
Several public figures have been keen in the wake of Fidel Castro's long-awaited death to praise the late communist dictator for supposedly improving healthcare and education for the Cuban people.
But for those who managed to survive the Castro purges, and for those who were not forced into exile, it doesn't appear things really improved in either of these areas.
This hasn't stopped certain circles from painting the man who lived to oppose 11 U.S. presidents as something of a rough but noble crusader for human rights.
The
New York Times, for example, claimed in an obituary published this weekend that the Castro regime ushered in an era of "medical advances."
The same obituary also hailed the deceased leader for "improving education and health care for many Cubans," and claimed that, "Admirers from around the world, including some Americans, were impressed with the way that health care and literacy in Cuba had improved."
Similar claims were made this weekend in competing newsrooms, including at MSNBC where Andrea Mitchell predicted Castro would "be revered" for bringing improving education, social services and health care for Cubans.
ABC News' Jim Avila's closing remarks for Castro included characterizing the deceased as the "George Washington of his country."
And so on.
But claims that Castro was some sort of bringer of knowledge and good health are total nonsense, according to a number of media and political figures, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Hans Bader.
"Cuba has made less educational progress than most Latin American countries over the last 60 years," he claimed recently,
citing numbers from UNESCO and the United Nations. "Cuba has made less progress in health care and life expectancy than most of Latin America in recent years, due to its decrepit health care system."
To the question of education, Bader argued: "Cuba had about the same literacy rate as Costa Rica and Chile in 1950 (close to 80 percent). And it has almost the same literacy rate as they do today (close to 100 percent)."
He continued:
Meanwhile, Latin American countries that were largely illiterate in 1950 — such as Peru, Brazil, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic — are largely literate today, closing much of the gap with Cuba. El Salvador had a less than 40 percent literacy rate in 1950, but has an 88 percent literacy rate today. Brazil and Peru had a less than 50 percent literacy rate in 1950, but today, Peru has a 94.5 percent literacy rate, and Brazil a 92.6 percent literacy rate. The Dominican Republic's rate rose from a little over 40 percent to 91.8 percent. While Cuba made substantial progress in reducing illiteracy in Castro's first years in power, its educational system has stagnated since, even as much of Latin America improved.
And to the question of Cuban healthcare, it's actually quite good – if you're lucky enough to get it.
There are three tiers to Cuba's healthcare system, according to
National Review's Jay Nordlinger.
"The first is for foreigners who come to Cuba specifically for medical care. This is known as "medical tourism." The tourists pay in hard currency, which provides oxygen to the regime. And the facilities in which they are treated are First World: clean, well supplied, state-of-the-art," he wrote, citing Jaime Suchlicki of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.
Nordlinger continued:
The foreigners-only facilities do a big business in what you might call vanity treatments: Botox, liposuction, and breast implants. Remember, too, that there are many separate, or segregated, facilities on Cuba. People speak of "tourism apartheid." For example, there are separate hotels, separate beaches, separate restaurants — separate everything. As you can well imagine, this causes widespread resentment in the general population. The second health-care system is for Cuban elites — the Party, the military, official artists and writers, and so on. In the Soviet Union, these people were called the "nomenklatura."
And their system, like the one for medical tourists, is top-notch. Then there is the real Cuban system, the one that ordinary people must use — and it is wretched. Testimony and documentation on the subject are vast. Hospitals and clinics are crumbling. Conditions are so unsanitary, patients may be better off at home, whatever home is. If they do have to go to the hospital, they must bring their own bedsheets, soap, towels, food, light bulbs — even toilet paper. And basic medications are scarce. In Sicko, even sophisticated medications are plentiful and cheap. In the real Cuba, finding an aspirin can be a chore. And an antibiotic will fetch a fortune on the black market.
[…]
The equipment that doctors have to work with is either antiquated or nonexistent. Doctors have been known to reuse latex gloves — there is no choice. When they travel to the island, on errands of mercy, American doctors make sure to take as much equipment and as many supplies as they can carry. One told the Associated Press, "The [Cuban] doctors are pretty well trained, but they have nothing to work with. It's like operating with knives and spoons."
Literacy rates on par with surrounding, freer countries and a three-tiered healthcare system where the privileged and foreigners benefit the most, and all for the price of one brutal, liberty strangling dictatorship.
¡Viva la Revolución! Indeed.