Doctors at Cuba’s main pediatric heart hospital are being forced to make heartbreaking choices about which young patients receive life-saving treatment first, as a severe fuel crisis deepens the country’s already strained healthcare system.
At Havana’s William Soler Pediatric Hospital, dimly lit wards and limited medical supplies have become a daily reality. During a recent visit by journalists, mothers sat beside their children in rooms illuminated mainly by sunlight streaming through windows because electricity shortages limit power use.
Cuba’s universal healthcare system has long been a symbol of the country’s socialist revolution, but hospitals have struggled for years with aging equipment and shortages of medicine. The situation has worsened dramatically since U.S. President Donald Trump imposed what Cuban officials describe as a de facto oil blockade in January, triggering widespread fuel shortages and daily blackouts across the island.
Dr. Herminia Palenzuela, a 79-year-old physician who founded the hospital in 1986, said medical teams now face extremely difficult decisions about how to allocate limited resources.
Children with less urgent conditions are often placed at the end of waiting lists and must wait longer for treatment, she explained.
“We would like to operate more. We would like to do more,” Palenzuela said. “But the resources don’t allow us to do so.”
The William Soler Pediatric Hospital treats newborns, children and pregnant women whose unborn babies have been diagnosed with severe congenital heart defects. Although the facility has about 100 beds, not all of them are currently in use because doctors must conserve critical equipment and medical supplies for the most seriously ill patients.
For families, the uncertainty has been agonizing.
Yaima Sanchez sat in a dim hallway waiting for doctors to examine her nine-year-old son, who suffers from tachycardia, a condition that causes an abnormally fast heartbeat. The portable device needed to monitor his heart rate is sometimes unavailable due to battery shortages or equipment failures.
“Sometimes the device isn’t there, or it’s dead because there are no batteries,” Sanchez said. “So far we’ve been lucky, but you never know.”
The energy crisis has affected nearly every part of life in Cuba. Rolling blackouts lasting several hours have become common, and the country experienced two nationwide power outages last week alone.
Hospitals are being prioritized for electricity and are equipped with generators to prevent total blackouts, but even medical staff are struggling to get to work. Many doctors and nurses must walk several kilometers each day due to fuel shortages affecting transportation.
In Havana, healthcare workers in white coats are often seen hitchhiking along the city’s iconic Malecón waterfront in order to reach hospitals and clinics.
According to Cuba’s health ministry, more than 96,000 people are currently waiting for surgeries across the country, including about 11,000 children.
Hospital director Eugenio Selmam said Cuba has long faced challenges obtaining medical equipment and medicine because of the U.S. trade embargo that has been in place since 1962.
“It’s something we have lived with for decades,” Selmam said. “But now, with this new situation, it has reached dramatic levels.”
International organizations are warning that the crisis could worsen if fuel supplies run out completely. The United Nations is currently in discussions with Washington about allowing fuel imports to support humanitarian operations in Cuba.
UN coordinator Francisco Pichon warned that if the energy shortage continues, the consequences could be severe.
“If the current situation continues and the country’s fuel reserves are exhausted, we do fear a rapid deterioration, with the potential loss of life,” he said.
Some humanitarian relief has begun arriving. This week, the hospital received a shipment of medicine, food and hygiene supplies delivered as part of an international aid convoy that brought about 50 tonnes of assistance to the island by sea and air.
Italian activist Martina Steinwurzel, a member of the Our America Convoy that helped deliver the supplies, described the situation as deeply troubling.
“These are people who have resisted for many years,” she said while volunteers stacked donated boxes in the hospital. “Now they are living through a siege they have never experienced in their history.”
