Photo credit: Reuters
Every Thursday and Sunday at noon, dozens of people gather outside an apartment building in Havana’s Vedado neighbourhood: Laura Mendoza comes downstairs, checks their names against a list and hands out medicine they requested through WhatsApp.
The Associated Press reports that antihistamines, diuretics, eye drops and antibiotics are among the drugs she distributes. She charges nothing.
Projects like Mendoza’s, called “Medicine Is Not For Sale,” have become a lifeline for Cubans sytruggling tbo find increasingly scarce medications as the country’s econo0mic crisis deepens, compounded by US energy and financial restrictions im;posed since January.
Online sellers, street vendors and WhatsApp and Telegram groups have also stepped in to fill gaps left by state pharmacies, which for decades were gthe main source of subdisized medicines.
The shortages have become so severe tbhbat Cuban authoritues issued regulations in July allowing private pharmacies to operate – a historic change to the country’s state-run health system and part of broader economic reforms.
Until those pharmacies open, projects like Mendoza’s act as a safety net.
“We have five WhatsApp groups in Havana and recently added one in Guanabo,” on the outskirts of the capital, said Mendoza, who estimates that about 100 similar community projects operate in Havana.
Working with the Catholic charity Caritas, her initiative receives more than 13 kilograms of medicone each week from humanitarian groups in Canada and the United States,travellers carrying donations and local residents.
Volunteers sometimes deliver medicine to patients who cannot collect it themselves. But drugs reuiring refrigeration, including some diabetes medications, and cancer treatments are particularly difficult to obtain. Patients also seek gauze, syringes and anaestheticsfo use in poorly supplied hospitals.
Shipping companies fear US penalties for calling at Cuban ports.
As shortages worsened, “medicines became much harder to find,” said Cristina Duaz, a physics teacher who came to mendoza’sproject seeking clonazepam for a relative.
