Hector González tells of the frenetic journey he recently experienced in several ways: the 10 kilos he lost, the six dialysis treatments he underwent, the perennial thirst that fatigued him, the 33 days he traveled or the panic that overwhelmed him in the most difficult moments. of his exodus.
"In Honduras I had to get on a bus that ran so fast that I literally flew between the gaps, I thought that was going to be the end of me. But
in Guatemala I had to cross a river and the current almost carried me away, there I felt like I was fainting
, but I managed to get out and in Mexico I had to walk a lot and suffer a lot of pain," explains González in an interview with Noticias Telemundo from Miami, where he now resides.
González, 40 years old and a journalist by profession, left his country on November 1 and says he remembers exactly the moment when his life changed.
It was in 2018, while living in China, where he says he deserted from a "slave job" at the Telesur news network where they only paid him $400, but the Cuban Government charged $4,000 for his services.
Héctor González, Cuban journalist who emigrated to Miami due to his kidney disease.Héctor González
"It was an impossible situation, so I deserted and then I started to make a better living in marketing jobs and I was doing well. But, in 2018, they told me that my kidney had stopped working and in order to survive I had to be connected to a machine. hemodialysis. Since I couldn't afford my treatment in China, I had to return to Cuba," he says and explains that on that occasion he spent several weeks in intensive care while he recovered.
González suffers from chronic kidney failure, a condition from which he could not improve due to the health crisis that affects the health system of his country.
"I left Cuba because I was going to die in the hospital. There is a crisis there that worsens every day and it is something never seen before, I tell you, I lived through the special period in the nineties," he says with discouragement.
"There is a crisis there that worsens every day and it is something never seen before."
Héctor González, Cuban journalist
For years, the Cuban regime boasted of being a medical power to the world and exported its doctors and health personnel to other countries.
However, the collapse of many of the island's public services due to the perennial economic crisis has caused some 12,000 doctors to leave the public health system in 2022, according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information.
"In Cuba you die in a hospital because there are no medicines and there is also a lack of doctors. There are many WhatsApp groups where people get things, but they have to ask for them outside. In the hospital there is never any and the doctor tells you because they give you ready to be able to do treatments and operations. Then imagine what that means for patients with chronic diseases, as is my case. In the end, that is like a death sentence," González asserts.
[How Cubans went from being considered "privileged" immigrants to suffering (almost) the same as other Latinos]
It's not the only one
In recent months, social networks have been flooded with cases in which the lack of medicines and hospital problems exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic are reported.
The Cubadata project published a survey in 2022 that reflects the health drama that Cubans are going through: more than half of those surveyed (55.8%) described access to medicines as "impossible", which added to those who claimed to have "a lot of difficulty" ", totals 80.3% of the consulted population.
"My child is 10 years old and suffers from chronic kidney failure that is in the terminal phase. Since he was 7 years old he has been on hemodialysis treatment, but he is a little delicate because he has had many problems with an arteriovenous fistula and that is why hemodialysis is not it is done correctly," says Mailin Rueda, 32 years old and mother of Juan Ernesto Benítez Rueda, one of the little patients who go through the ordeal of being treated every day, in a video call from Havana.
The Cubadata survey is eloquent about the difficulties suffered by the sick on the island.
Regarding the possibility of obtaining medical attention, 57.6% of the people surveyed admit that they have great difficulties obtaining medical attention.
"Children die in hospitals, many of my son's classmates have died due to problems with the treatments. My child has had 19 catheters, because in Cuba it has become impossible to do transplants. That is why a bacteria lodged in his heart and I almost died, we don't know what else to do," Rueda explains desperately.
"My child has had 19 catheters, because in Cuba it has become impossible to do transplants."
mailin Rueda, mother of a kidney patient
In the case of his son Juan Ernesto, both Rueda and the father are compatible to donate a kidney but the operation has not been able to be performed on the island, and they have not been able to obtain a humanitarian visa to undergo this procedure in the United States.
"In the hospital there are not even three-way valves, which are hoses used in dialysis. I have to take them, but I have few left, I don't know what I'm going to do when I run out because without that I wouldn't do it." can attend," he asserts.
Between 2022 and mid-2023, the island has experienced the mass migration of more than 300,000 Cubans.
In fiscal year 2022, US authorities have identified around 225,000 encounters of Cubans on the land border between the US and Mexico, in addition, they were also intercepted at sea on more than 6,000 occasions.
According to various experts, these figures exceed past episodes such as the Mariel exodus in 1980 or the Cuban rafters crisis in 1994.
"The economic crisis has a domino effect. First of all, people do not have good jobs, in addition there are no medicines in hospitals, and doctors leave. What we know about Cuban medicine is that the training is very sophisticated , but many of these doctors and nurses trained in Cuba live in other parts of Latin America. They do not live in Cuba," Jeanne Batalova, senior policy analyst and researcher at the Migration Policy Institute, explains in an interview with Noticias Telemundo.
In an essay published in mid-2023, Batalova and her colleague Jiaxin Wei pointed out that, since before the COVID-19 pandemic, there had already been a significant increase in the number of Cubans emigrating irregularly to the United States, which has triggered the largest migration of this type in the modern history of Cuba.
"Economic and political difficulties affect a lot. That is why people are looking for options to go elsewhere. Furthermore, in the cases of patients with chronic diseases, they have to leave because their lives depend on the possibility of getting a better treatment," explains Batalova.
Another element that also drives Cuban migration is the lack of civil and political liberties that, among other things, restricts freedom of expression and political opposition.
"Arbitrary arrests and political persecution have generated a climate of fear and repression that prevents citizen participation and the exercise of fundamental freedoms," denounced the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in July 2022.
The Cuban activist Diasniurka Salcedo Verdecia decided to leave the island on January 13, after having denounced on social networks and in interviews the constant harassment by members of the state security forces.
"I am currently traveling in Mexico because I was forced to leave the country by the state security organs due to my political activism. The regime increased its repression against me after November 24 because that day several mothers were with me to protest in front of the Ministry of Public Health," he explains in a telephone interview with Noticias Telemundo.
The IACHR and its Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression have documented at least eight repressive patterns by the Cuban State in the context of social protests.
"They included mistreatment, criminalization of protesters, closure of democratic spaces, trials without guarantees of due process, restrictive legislative proposals and censorship of Internet access," both organizations specify.
In 2023, the IACHR cited records from Cuban civil society organizations that reported that, from July 2021 to July of that year, 1,880 people were detained due to the repression of social protests.
"Of these, 773 people remain deprived of liberty. In addition, 909 people have been tried and/or punished for their participation in protests, and at least 84 of them have opted for exile after being released or during temporary releases," stated the court.
Salcedo, who says she suffers from hypertension, diabetes and pancreatic cancer, left Cuba with two of her adopted children and says she is concerned about the medical situation of her daughter, who was unable to receive adequate treatment in her country due to the problems of the health system.
"She is a 2-year-old girl and I had her in serious condition on one occasion at the William Soler Hospital in Havana, because she has a kidney malformation, she falls into kidney crisis and has been in crisis throughout the journey," explains Salcedo.
Noticias Telemundo contacted the International Press Center and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba to find out the position of the Government of Havana on the health problems in the country and the causes of the migratory flow, but did
not receive a response until the time of publication of this report.
Héctor González during his hospitalization in San Diego, after crossing the US border.Héctor González
"I just need an opportunity"
Being a journalist, González knows the reality of his country well and usually has figures that support what he says, while emphasizing that he emigrated due to the urgent need to live.
He claims that, if he had been able to undergo the peritoneal dialysis program, he would have been able to improve.
But there are no more supplies on the island.
"I'm not making this up, official data says that, of about 4,000 kidney patients, only 80 have access to this treatment," he explained.
As in the case of Rueda's son, journalist González also suffers from vascular problems that resulted in the formation of several fistulas, so it was not possible to achieve vascular access, and he has always had catheters.
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With a smile, González explains that this is another way of counting how long his illness has lasted: more than six years, more than 2,200 days or the 24 catheters that have left deep grooves in his neck, in addition to causing a stenosis in his neck. Blood vesels.
The doctors who treated him when he arrived in the United States on December 4, Santa Barbara Day as he remembers with a laugh, left him hospitalized for 16 days when they saw him dehydrated, swollen, exhausted, with infections and pus oozing from his catheter.
"I have venous stenosis, which causes many of my blood vessels to be obstructed and that makes it difficult for me to have an arteriovenous fistula, which is what is used to make hemodialysis better, which is why I use catheters," he says tiredly.
These days, González is focused on improving his health and is requesting asylum.
As happens with many recent immigrants, after surrendering to US authorities he was released with document I220-A, a conditional
parole
, but he says he wants to regularize his situation as soon as possible.
"For me it is a matter of life or death, because I need asylum to make it easier to obtain a transplant," he says.
González remembers that, during the long nights he spent awake recovering from dialysis, he used to entertain himself by watching old episodes of
The Newsroom
, the HBO series that delves into the frenzy, adrenaline and all the pressure that comes with the daily broadcast of a informative program.
Laughing, she says that her favorite character is Mackenzie McHale, the demanding producer who has a magnificent nose for discovering news.
"My dream is very simple, to recover my health and work as a journalist or producer on a television channel in the United States. After everything that has happened to me, I just need an opportunity, as soon as they take this hose away from me I am ready for what whatever," he explains with emotion.