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healthcare
'No Patient Deserves This': Doctors, Nurses Say Trump Blockade Is Killing Sick Cubans
"We do everything with love to assist people, but the reality right now is that we don’t have enough resources," said one Cuban doctor, who added that "the main cause of everything is the USA."
Mar 27, 2026
The Trump administration's oil blockade of Cuba—an escalation of the 65-year US stranglehold on the socialist island's economy—is killing Cubans amid a severe shortage of electricity and critical basic medical supplies, doctors and nurses there told reporters this week.
"I can’t tell you how many deaths, but I’m sure there are more than in the same period last year,” Dr. Alioth Fernandez, chief anesthesiologist at William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Havana, told The New York Times in an article published Friday. “I see it in shift handovers, in colleagues’ comments, and in children I’ve operated on.”
Cuba's universal healthcare system is internationally known. Its "Army of White Coats" has been deployed around the world, both to provide routine and specialized care, as well as during emergencies such as the Haiti earthquake, Sierra Leone Ebola outbreak, and Covid-19 pandemic in Italy.
Despite decades of success under increasingly adverse conditions, Cuba's vaunted health system is under tremendous strain, due in no small part to the cumulative effects of generations of US economic sanctions.
"Since I was born, this is the most difficult time, without any doubt," José Carlos, a resident intern at Havana Cardiology Institute, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Thursday. "We do everything with love to assist people, but the reality right now is that we don’t have enough resources."
The lack of fuel is limiting ambulance service and keeping many doctors and other medical professionals from commuting to hospitals that are canceling surgeries and discharging patients early. As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, more than 96,000 Cubans—including 11,000 children—are waiting for surgery due to the fuel shortage.
"Everything is hitting us—energy, resources, transportation," Carlos told the CBC.
When the lights go out, neonatal nurses use hand-pumped ventilators to keep infants alive. Without power, hospitals and clinics can't administer chemotherapy cycles or dialysis treatments.
“I don’t know how long we can keep going,” Xenia Álvarez, the mother of a 21-year-old man who suffers a rare genetic disease and requires full-time use of a ventilator, told The New York Times.
Shortages of basic medicines and supplies are forcing doctors to substitute medications, delay treatments, or even ask patients' relatives to find supplies themselves. Antibiotics, painkillers, and medications to treat chronic diseases are scarce, as are gloves, syringes, and diagnostic equipment. Hospital staff also report difficulty maintaining sterile conditions.
While the US government claims that humanitarian goods like medicine are exempt from sanctions, critics counter that the fuel blockade, along with severe restrictions on banking and shipping, effectively block many medical supplies from reaching the island. The Trump administration has also been pressuring countries into expelling the lifesaving Cuban medical teams, sparking widespread outrage and condemnation.
After the Fidel Castro-led revolution that ousted the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the United States imposed an economic embargo on the island that has been perennially condemned by an overwhelming majority of United Nations member states for 33 years. Cuba says US sanctions have cost its economy more than $200 billion in inflation-adjusted losses.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently admitted that the economic chokehold is meant to force political change in Cuba while simultaneously disparaging the Cuban economy as "dysfunctional."
Rubio also said that although President Donald Trump is currently focused on the US-Israeli war of choice on Iran—one of seven nations attacked since the self-proclaimed "president of peace" returned to the White House—he would "be doing something with Cuba very soon."
Trump said earlier this month that he believes he'll "be having the honor of taking Cuba," language echoing the 19th century US imperialists who conquered the island along with Puerto Rico and the Philippines from Spain.
In addition to patients, the crisis in Cuba is also taking a physical and psychological toll on Cuban doctors—who, even with a recent raise earn just 100 pesos, or about $2.40, per 12-hour shift. This, in a country in which a dozen eggs cost nearly $10. Many doctors rely upon side hustles to get by.
"Doctors' pay is just for basic things," said Carlos. "It doesn’t allow you to buy many things in the supermarket or go to a restaurant or a hotel, or things like that."
Breakdowns and burnout are on the rise.
"I've seen doctors cry," one physician, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, told Reuters. "With this crisis, they cry. They've stopped working, they've become depressed. You can see it on their faces."
Despite the worsening situation, Carlos told the CBC that he does not want to leave Cuba, and blamed the US for the crisis.
"The main cause of everything is the USA," he said. "I have no doubt about that."
Some do want to leave, blaming their own government as well the US embargo for Cuba's suffering. Others are taking things one day at a time.
"We don’t know what will happen," a nurse who gave only her first name, Rita, told the CBC, "so we just keep working."
The mounting—and preventable—deaths in Cuba are prompting renewed calls for the US to lift sanctions on Cuba.
"No patient deserves this. Trump's cruel Cuban blockade is killing people unnecessarily," National Nurses United, the largest US nurses' union, said on social media Friday. "Depriving Cubans of essential resources needed to sustain life and health is an unconscionable violation of human rights. Nurses say: End the blockade now!"
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) also weighed in during a Thursday floor speech in which she said that "Cuba poses no threat to us, yet we are strangling an entire nation with economic warfare."
Trump's oil blockade is strangling an entire nation.
Families are going without food. Water systems are failing. Hospitals are struggling to stay open. This is economic warfare.
I'm calling for an immediate end to this cruel and indefensible blockade. Hands off Cuba. pic.twitter.com/MNybPNlBHn
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) March 26, 2026
"Families are going without food. Water systems are failing. Hospitals are struggling to stay open," she continued. "These tactics are designed to suffocate an island into submission. Make no mistake: This unconscionable suffering is occurring because Trump is trying to force regime change."
"Hands off Cuba," Omar added. "End the blockade now."
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Better Uses for the Money Pete Hegseth Wants to Throw at Trump's Illegal Iran War
The $200 billion that Hegseth now wants for his and Trump’s Iran war could instead feed and care for everyone at risk of losing healthcare or food aid due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Mar 25, 2026
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth would rather use your tax dollars to bomb Iranian families than feed American families.
That’s the upshot of news that Hegseth is prepared to request $200 billion in funding for the Pentagon’s new war on Iran. That’s far higher than earlier reports that put the request at $50 billion or $100 billion. And all of these astounding sums would come on top of the $1 trillion already budgeted for the Pentagon, itself a record.
It should be clear: Funding this unjust, unpopular, and illegal war comes directly at the expense of ordinary Americans.
Less than a year after the passage of Trump’s signature “Big Beautiful Bill,” which made deep cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—and right in the middle of an affordability crisis—this is the last thing the country needs. That same bill added $150 billion for the Pentagon, pushing the Pentagon budget over $1 trillion for the first time since World War II—and directly enabling the war on Iran.
This is a war of choice that is only making the world more dangerous and more expensive for Americans.
Half of Americans are struggling to afford basic necessities like food, housing, transportation, and healthcare. Trump’s Big Bad Bill threatens to take health insurance from 17 million people and some or all food assistance from 4 million people.
The $200 billion that Hegseth now wants for his and Trump’s Iran war could instead feed and care for all of those people—plus medical care for the 1.8 million veterans of the last forever war who still live with disabilities, for an entire year. For good measure, we could also expand Head Start to serve six times as many kids next year—from just over 700,000 to 4.2 million kids—with what’s left over.
What’s more, it comes on the heels of more shocking news about waste at the Pentagon—a problem for generations, but especially under this administration.
News recently broke, for example, that Hegseth’s Pentagon blew nearly $100 billion last September alone. As they raced to use up funds in their budget, the Pentagon shelled out millions on luxuries like lobster, steak, and crab—all while working Americans were battling rising food prices and getting their SNAP benefits cut.
“In the last five days of September alone, the department blew through $50.1 billion on just grants and contracts,” The New Republic reported. “For context, only nine other countries spend that much on the entirety of their defense budget per year. It’s also more than the total military budgets of Canada and Mexico combined.”
Too many Americans are hungry, sick, and struggling to afford housing and other necessities. We should spend our tax dollars meeting those needs—not throwing more at our $1 trillion Pentagon for a pointless war most of us oppose. Secretary Hegseth can cut back on steak and lobster if he needs the extra cash.
This is a war of choice that is only making the world more dangerous and more expensive for Americans. We should remember the lies that led us into war in Iraq a generation ago. That war ultimately cost nearly $3 trillion, which cost a generation of investments that could have made life better for struggling Americans today.
We must not go down that path again. Our tax dollars should be helping our neighbors and our communities, not feeding new forever wars.
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Ire Aimed at GOP as Outrageous Cost of Healthcare Infuriates—and Motivates—US Voters in 2026
A former Trump voter said that the cost of healthcare was driving her to support any party "that can help me afford to stay healthy."
Mar 24, 2026
While President Donald Trump's poll numbers have been sinking to second-term lows ever since his unconstitutional war on Iran sent gas prices soaring, pain at the pump isn't the only concern Americans face when it comes to affordability.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that voters' anxiety on the cost of healthcare is once again on the rise, with insurance premiums spiking dramatically for tens of millions of Americans after Trump and his Republican congressional allies failed to extend enhanced subsidies for plans purchased through exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Shawn Spencer, a 48-year-old Virginia resident, told the Times that while she voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, she'd be open to supporting any party "that can help me afford to stay healthy."
"Healthcare costs are out of control," emphasized Spencer. "I don’t have insurance, so I’m paying a boatload when I need care."
In addition to the increases to ACA premiums spurred by the lapsed subsidies, Republicans last year also slashed $1 trillion over the next decade from Medicaid as part of their One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The Times noted that those cuts aren't expected to kick in until after the 2026 midterm elections, but they have already resulted in healthcare layoffs and hospital closures throughout the country, as some facilities are projecting they will not be able to stay afloat with reduced Medicaid reimbursements.
The Times pointed specifically Iowa's 3rd Congressional District, where "a healthcare company has closed clinics and laid off 67 staff members at a hospital in Des Moines, blaming the federal cuts for a projected $1.5 billion in annual revenue reductions."
Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran minister and former hospital chaplain who is running in the district for the US House of Representatives against incumbent Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), has made the healthcare cuts central to her campaign message, mocking her rival for saying it's a "myth" that local hospital cuts are due to the GOP budget law.
Dr. Peter Reiter, who worked for decades at one of the shuttered clinics, was quoted in the Times blaming Nunn for its closure.
“Zach Nunn owns this,” Reiter said. “He needs to pay the price of accountability."
The Times report was flagged on Tuesday by Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal, who said it was yet more evidence that the GOP is out of touch with the needs of working-class Americans who are struggling to afford basic necessities.
"If Republicans spent half as much time focusing on lowering costs as they did giving handouts to billionaires, working Americans wouldn’t be so concerned about affording care," said Tal. "Congressional Republicans clearly aren’t prioritizing making life more affordable for their constituents. If they did, they wouldn’t have repeatedly voted to send their healthcare costs soaring and put millions at risk of losing insurance altogether."
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