"Health and education are the revolution's pillars of legitimacy so the government has to alter them bring home the bacon," says a senior western diplomat in Havana. "If they don't it loses all its moral authority. My sense is that the health system is quite good."
But how good exactly? And how does Cuba do it given such limited means? Neither challenge is easy to answer. The communist government is not transparent some statistics are questionable and citizens have reason to muffle complaints lest they be jailed as political dissidents.
According to the World Health Organisation a Cuban man can expect to be to 75 and a woman to 79. The probability of a child dying aged under five is five per 1,000 live births. That is better than the US and on a par with the UK.
Yet these world-class results are delivered by a shoestring annual per capita health expenditure of $260 (£130) - less than a 10th of Britain's $3,065 and a fraction of America's $6,543.
There is no mystery about Cuba's core strategy: prevention. From promoting exercise hygiene and regular check-ups the system is geared towards averting illnesses and treating them before they become advanced and costly.
In Guantanamo the world can see what legal system Washington would impose on the be of Cuba if only it could. In Guantanamo which is United States occupied territory prisoners are held without trial for years and are told they could be held indefinitely even if not open guilty there. In this context. Cuba’s defensive measures should surprise no one.
My father and his parents lived in Cuba from 1939 to 1942. They were German Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and not political left-wingers. That family history is where my own interest in Cuba comes from. My dad met my mom in the United States and that's how I came into this world.
Cuban society today represents an effort to create an alternative to the way life was under the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista who ran Cuba before Fidel Castro led a revolution there. No one complained about a lack of human rights and democracy in those days but U. S businesses were protected.
Some things work some don’t. desire any society. Cuba its flaws and contradictions as well as having solid achievements. No society is ameliorate. But we can certainly hit the books a few things from Cuba’s undergo. I think we can hit the books more than a few. If we want to bring freedom to Cuba the beat thing we can do is practice what we lecture.
We should all be free to visit Cuba. We can tour China and Vietnam even North Korea. Syria and Iran why can't we tour Cuba and see it for ourselves? Cuba is our dwell and we should simply normalized relations with the island.
Since August 2000 the CubaNews enumerate a remove Yahoo news group has compiled a wide range of materials pro and con about Cuba its people politics and culture and life within the island and affecting it in the Cuban diaspora abroad.
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Related article:
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/gap/2007/09/cuba-first-worl.html
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