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Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by nextstep on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:02PM (#27654241)
But also not surprising because despite the decades of restrictions which have limited Cuba’s ability to import medical supplies, they have one of the best medical systems in the world.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by baybal2 on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:32PM (#27654517)
Maybe it is not that hard to run a basic medical system if some leadership, administrative proves, and money put together?
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by sudosysgen on Sunday June 27, 2021 @11:36PM (#27657854)
Do you think it's hard to run it to better outcomes than the US?
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by baybal2 on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:56AM (#27658559)
No, one have to try really hard to mess it up as bad as it is in US
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by sudosysgen on Monday June 28, 2021 @02:02AM (#27658592)
As far as cost efficiency, this is certainly true. That said, I come from a country that is economically in a very similar situation to Cuba, and their healtcare system is much superior.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by crakenzak on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:07PM (#27654280)
> they have one of the best medical systems in the world.

citation needed

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by dang on Sunday June 27, 2021 @07:48PM (#27656572)
Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by w0de0 on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:14PM (#27654352)
It well-known that Cuba has an impressive healthcare system and does not particularly need to be cited unless specific claims are made. Cuba is famous, for instance, for exporting doctors to other nations.

In any case, here is a short paper showing Cuba's healthcare outcomes are comparable to Canada and US: https://globalhealth.washington.edu/sites/default/files/50%2...

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by sdfin on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:17PM (#27654383)
Cuban doctors' don't seem to be very happy with that, according to the NYT and BBC:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/americas/brazil-cub...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48214513

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by runarberg on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:49PM (#27654656)
The same applies for Iceland. Nurses keep striking, doctors call for more funding, health care experts keep complaining about lack of facilities. Yet Iceland has one of the best health care system in the world.

Be it a capitalist country like Iceland or a socialist like Cuba, with enough funding and an educated workforce you can run a pretty successful healthcare system, despite the fact that it could be better. And perhaps that is precisely why the workers in a successful healthcare system complain. They are educated enough to know how it could be improved even further.

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by sdfin on Sunday June 27, 2021 @05:24PM (#27655549)
Your answer is not related to the content of the articles.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by runarberg on Sunday June 27, 2021 @07:32PM (#27656471)
The articles are about Cuban doctors complaining about their working conditions and compensation as they are sent abroad. You used them as a way to answer your parent, who’s central claim was that that it is a well known fact that Cuba’s health care system is good actually. They provide the fact that Cuba exports doctors as an example of how successful their healthcare system is.

To me it sounded like you were using the fact that doctors complain about their working condition as evidence against parent’s claim. So it felt natural to explain that a healthcare system can be successful despite the fact that the workers in said system have complaints about it.

Ideally these workers should be paid a fair share for their labor (particularly when their boss—the Cuban Government—claims to be a socialist). But regrettably that is not the world we live in. I wouldn’t be surprised—if the numbers were crunched—that a doctor employed by a for profit hospital in a capitalist country also only received a tenth to a quarter of the profits they generate, after their bosses take their profits and their governments take their taxes.

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by LightG on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:23PM (#27654442)
While important to you and me, the attitude of the doctors is not in question here, just the level of Cuba's medical expertise.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by lr4444lr on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:36PM (#27654550)
Most of the reports I've read about Cuba's healthcare metrics are heavily reliant on trusting data released by the Cuban government (particularly around life expectancy and infant mortality), not subject to independent audit. Haven't looked closely at the sources in your citation, though.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by tshaddox on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:40PM (#27654584)
Is this not the case with all basic metrics of every nation?
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by lr4444lr on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:57PM (#27654718)
No: NGOs, academia, a free press... None of these to my knowledge are able to operate in Cuba with what most of us would consider trustable autonomy from the government in publishing information that constitutes an independent research.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by slim on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:50PM (#27654670)
There are scientific publications every year by cuban doctors that corroborate that data. None disputes the superiority of cuban health system
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by paulcole on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:31PM (#27654513)
> they have one of the best medical systems in the world.

This feels like a specific claim being made.

For everyone downvoting me, just want you to know that yellow is one of the worst colors in the world.

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by woodruffw on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:11PM (#27654320)
I believe the quality and breadth of Cuba's medical system rises to the level of conventional wisdom[1][2].

Edit: I forgot to link statistics for the country itself, not just the doctors they send abroad. They perform admirably against both the U.S. and most European countries[3].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_medical_internationalism

[2]: https://time.com/5467742/cuba-doctors-export-brazil/

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Health_stat...

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by chizhik-pyzhik on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:17PM (#27654377)
Cuba has a life expectancy of 78.8, just under the United States' 79.1. Their infant mortality rate 5.1 deaths per 1000 births, slightly better than 6.5 in the US. Cuba also has the highest rate of physicians per citizen in all of latin america, and has a huge medical diplomacy progam, sending doctors all over the world.

It's a pretty controversial topic, though- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Contrasting...

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by tomjakubowski on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:27PM (#27654474)
World Bank puts Cuba's public health statistics largely on par with the United States, at about one-tenth the per-capita cost. Of course, compared to other developed countries, the USA hardly delivers great healthcare to its population. So Cuba might not be a top country for healthcare in the world, but what they do have is impressive given the circumstances.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by fennecfoxen on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:43PM (#27654612)
> World Bank puts Cuba's public health statistics largely on par with the United States, at about one-tenth the per-capita cost.

The average Cuban makes in the neighborhood of $30 a month. Cuban doctors make about $70 a month. US doctors make something around $30,000 a month.

As it turns out, it is much easier to have a cheap medical system when you pay basically nothing for labor. However, this is a feature of a system which is otherwise rather unenviable.

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by slim on Sunday June 27, 2021 @04:34PM (#27655034)
Cubans are paid in peso. And what they get paid is enough to provide for what they want. Granted what they want is limited by the limited choice of consumer goods. On the other hand consumerism is worse
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by mping on Sunday June 27, 2021 @04:20PM (#27654923)
You imply that the bulk of the costs are labour costs, but medical invoices in the US suggest otherwise.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by morelisp on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:54PM (#27654704)
The unenviable part is the $30-70 range, not the 2x income spread.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by fennecfoxen on Sunday June 27, 2021 @04:18PM (#27654911)
Indeed. We would surely be living in fantastical, glorious times if the US median income were to rise to ~$180,000. (In real figures, of course, not just hyperinflation.) I believe this would require us to triple GNP, if not more.

I am almost entirely in favor of this proposal, except that it would probably be preferable in such a case to admit immigrants from less prosperous parts of the world who would go on to earn substantially less than that. This would bring the overall income figure down, but would still be a major win for the world's overall prosperity.

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by ruined on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:21PM (#27654417)
https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/5/08-030508/en/

structurally, it's a good target model. materially, capitalist embargoes have prevented import of drugs and equipment that isn't already manufactured locally.

https://theconversation.com/is-the-cuban-healthcare-system-r...

they also provide medical education for free, even to foreign citizens.

notably, che guevara was a doctor before he was a soldier, and this probably informed the cuban communist party's healthcare policy.

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by zeusly on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:14PM (#27654349)
Here's a ranking from the WHO: https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf

39 out of 191, 2 places behind the US.

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by SettembreNero on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:16PM (#27654369)
While being free of charge
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by fennecfoxen on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:35PM (#27654544)
Cuba legitimately has one of the best medical education systems in the world. It's one of the regime's successes.

On the other hand, many of these doctors are sent to work in Cuba's allies, where most of their pay goes to the Cuban government. At home, their medical system goes through some pretty rough patches from time to time, and you have people who need to turn to the black market to buy the iodine necessary for disinfection of their own surgeries.

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by pessimizer on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:13PM (#27654334)
The citation is the first result of any search related to Cuba and medicine on any search engine.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by saiya-jin on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:34PM (#27654534)
HN at its best... this is known for a very long time. I don't know how much GDP budget they put into medical system, or what other miracle they managed to perform long term, but its true.

Of course its relative - is it better than Switzerland? Of course not, but comparing to peers in 3rd world, they are absolutely stellar. Cheap/free advanced medicine and care, tons of foreign missions around the world.

I recall from cold war, Cuban medical scientists and doctors were regarded as top notch in eastern bloc and many exchange missions were done to get some of that to other parts of the world. From Cuban perspective, cold war didn't end with fall of USSR

Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by rubatuga on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:37PM (#27654562)
I heard it's mid-tier, but nowhere near "the best". For example, developing countries would appreciate it if Cuban doctors came to volunteer, but they aren't at the standard of US doctors.
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by belltaco on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:12PM (#27654329)
Re:Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna by xeromal on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:19PM (#27654398)
It's widely known. No citation needed.