US Blockade Affects Cuban Scientific Activity

The blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba has prevented our participation in an event of editors of scientific publications in Brazil, the director of the Cuban Journal of Nursing (RCE), Luis Hernandez, said on Tuesday.

The Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) was going to finance the participation of our delegates in that event, and everything went very well until the UN agency had to transfer the money for all traveling expenses, Hernandez told Prensa Latina.

Hernandez, who is also a specialist in nursing, said that PAHO bank was in charge of making transactions, but it has stocks in the United States, so when they realized it was for a Cuban citizen, the process stopped, he said.

We could not participate in the event, but due to the importance of the RCE, we sent the work by mail, and it was presented by another delegate, and not by the main author, he said.

Due to that brutal policy, we have also had to implement other alternatives to counter the deficit of resources, the president of the Cuban Society of Nursing, Irma Infante, noted.

The economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba not only harms us, added the president of the organizing committee to the 16th Pan-American Research Colloquium on Nursing, scheduled from November 5-9.

We had the experience of a US nurse who was admitted here at a hospital, and she told us that her clinic had requested a biotechnological product from us, but it did not have the possibility of getting it because it was produced in Cuba, she said.

These deficiencies affect us a lot, because emotionally we want to give the patient the best, but sometimes we cannot do it, she said.

On Wednesday, October 31, the United Nations General Assembly will vote for the 27th consecutive year on a draft resolution calling for the end to the US blockade of Cuba.

That genocidal policy imposed on Cuba is responsible for damage worth more than 2.5 billion dollars on the healthcare system for almost 60 years.