What we now know about Cuban Healthcare statistics
In this blog article, we are going to focus on Cuban healthcare system. This is a topic of interest in Kenya considering that we’ve already received our first batch of 50 Cuban doctors. This means, 50 more doctors will land any time soon.
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Cuba is world famous for their healthcare system. It is touted as one of the best in the world. An article on Mises Wire now provides more insights on Cuba.
Cuba has one of the lowest infant mortality rates (the number of deaths per 1,000 children under 1 year of age) in the world. The genius behind these amazing statistics has been revealed:
“Physicians often perform abortions without clear consent of the mother, raising serious issues of medical ethics, when ultrasound reveals fetal abnormalities because otherwise it might raise the infant mortality rate….! At 72.8 abortions per 100 births, Cuba has one of the highest abortion rates in the world.”
These actions reminds us of the debates on abortion rights during the constitution reforms in Kenya back in 2010. Religious groups wanted the new Constitution to say that life begins at conception. Hence, make abortion a violation of right to life.
Back to Cuban healthcare, it is important to note that the great focus on reducing infant mortality might have caused a rise in types of mortality.
A healthy nation is a wealthy nation. This sounds so true for Cuba. However, it is important to note that some of the factors that have lead to a health population have nothing to do with healthcare services. In fact, we do not need lots of drugs, injections and surgeries for us to stay healthy. Cuba is a case in point.
“Car ownership is heavily restricted in Cuba and as a result, the country’s car ownership rate is far below the Latin American average (55.8 per 1,000 persons as opposed to 267 per 1000).” – Road Safety 2016.
Having fewer vehicles on our roads will lead to less traffic jams and hence fewer road accidents. If there are less cars, people are forced to walk or cycle to work, school and church. It happens in Cuba and this has been reflected on the good performance on their healthcare scorecard.
The forced exercise (walking or cycling) has an effect of reducing cases of obesity, diabetes and heart diseases such as heart failure, coronary and strokes.
We need a goodwill from the top leadership to enforce these kind of regulations where people are required to commute to work on bicycle or better still walk to work to reduce what we call “lifestyle diseases in Kenya.” In this century many people are dying of overfeeding than hunger.
Opportunity Cost
There is an opportunity cost associated with Cuba’s good healthcare system. That is, when more and more resources are directed to healthcare, it means some other sectors of the economy are suffering.
