La enfermera y activista Welsimys Cruz Pérez reflexiona sobre las innumerables carencias que viven los niños en Cuba.
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00:00 I was reading an article by Sarai Martinez, a disabled child with a tracheotomy, and that has broken my heart. It has broken my heart because I have a son with a progressive degenerative disease, as everyone knows, with paraplegia. Thank God my son is in the United States today, I am here.
00:29 But my son is doing well, he is studying, he is going to school.
00:34 And when I saw this article, it broke my heart because I lived and I know what it is like to be without medication.
00:44 And once in my first period I said, "I know what it is like to be hungry."
00:52 And I tell the people of Cuba, the parents, I said in a live, "I'm sorry, I'm crying because those who know me know what I'm like."
01:05 I always said, "We have to wait for our children to grow up so they can fight and do whatever they have to do, if we can do it as parents, because a parent becomes a lion for their children."
01:22 So I say, "You as parents are to blame for everything that is happening because a parent must fight for a better future for their children.
01:36 You don't have to wait for them to grow up because you have to wait for your children to grow up hungry."
01:41 For example, my son was operated on and today he had a checkup and there was no medical equipment to treat him in the hospital.
01:51 Many people criticized me and even said, "I'm not going to read the comments because it really hurts my head and I don't even see well because I have such high blood pressure."
02:01 I already took two paracetamol and I took my medication for high blood pressure, but they had to talk.
02:11 I'm going to tell the mothers and fathers in Cuba today, and I don't want them to criticize me and say, "You're out of Cuba, it's very easy."
02:20 No, I was in Cuba and I didn't stay quiet. I didn't lower my head.
02:29 When I had to go out, I left on July 11, I left on November 15, half a block away, but I left because I was under house arrest.
02:39 As everyone knows, in Holguin, those who know me know that it is like that, my neighbors know that it is like that.
02:45 I lived constantly under house arrest and under surveillance by agents of the State Security.
02:52 But I want to tell the people of Cuba today, in general, the parents. A father and a mother become a lion for their children.
03:02 How sad it is not to have a plate of food to put on the table. How sad it is to see your child in a hospital and not to have a medicine to assist him.
03:11 That's why I want to tell the parents to fight. Fight for the freedom of their children. Join together.
03:20 The people have the power.
03:22 Everyone in the streets demanding what is rightfully theirs and what has been taken away from them.
03:31 Do you understand? How many more will continue to be subjugated? How many more will continue to be enslaved?
03:37 It can't be. The people, they are the minimum. They are less. The people are more.
03:45 Do you understand? The day the Cuban people and all the parents get together and criticize me. Gentlemen, you can criticize me.
03:51 You can, greetings Ariel Bongora, you can criticize me. But I am from, and I said it inside Cuba, when we all join together, the parents, look, you know what it is?
04:01 That the children are being given the milk, the baby, and what they are giving him is half a liter of milk and when he arrives at the winery, he arrives cut.
04:11 That child was left without taking the milk. No, if I were there, those who know me and are from there, from the neighborhood, they know how I was.
04:18 If there was no electricity in the morning, my son would not go to school, everyone there knows it.
04:23 And no teacher could tell me why your son did not go to school. There is no current, my son, without breakfast, he does not go.
04:29 And many of my neighbors did. China, did you send the child to school? No, neither did I.
04:36 I told my neighbors, do not send him, because with an empty stomach, what head will think? Who will learn?
04:42 So when I saw this publication of Saraí Martínez, my soul was healed, because I know what it is to be.
04:48 My son needed Clonazepam, he did not have it, convulsing.
04:53 My colleagues at the Lenin Hospital know that I went out with a syringe of Diazepam loaded until I got home.
05:00 How many times did they accompany me at midnight to give me my son?
05:05 And when my son stopped convulsing, I went and regrouped in my work so as not to stop working,
05:12 so that they paid me the full salary, because in Cuba you do not pay with a salary.
05:16 So, gentlemen, the freedom of Cuba is in the hands of the people.
05:25 You are there, mom, dad, take your children and criticize me whoever wants to criticize me.
05:31 The streets are for all Cubans, children, elderly, young people, adults.
05:36 For the streets? They are going to commit a genocide against a whole people.
05:42 In all of Latin America there are Cubans, in all the countries of the world there are Cubans.
05:48 I am sure that the day the people of Cuba are back on the streets,
05:53 all of us who are in exile, we will be there.
05:59 They cut off the internet, and we will be in front of the embassies, wherever they have to go,
06:03 but we will echo our people.
06:06 And we will not allow them to harass our people anymore.
06:10 But do not follow them. Give them a respect. Do not keep holding on.
06:15 Hunger, need, repression. There, with their heads down, that's enough.
06:23 Join all of them, and for the streets, the MIPIME, the MIPIME are companies of who?
06:29 Of the generals of the government, of the people of the MINIM,
06:33 they have all the boxes of chicken, oil, everything, while the people are starving
06:37 and they have not taken, they spend a month to take what they had last month to give them this month.
06:42 That's enough, gentlemen.
06:45 Have dignity, fill yourselves with courage, because one for a child is capable of everything.
06:52 And I, look, with my head held high, and let me say what they want to say to me.
06:58 "Oh no, because I'm afraid I'm going to be arrested, or because they're going to repress us."
07:03 No, no, no, no. I said it inside Cuba, I said it inside Cuba, and I'm going to say it here.
07:09 When 50 police officers fall, 50 of those in black and white,
07:14 500 of the people fall, the mambises with whom they fought and with whom they fought their war,
07:21 machetes, and the Spaniards had, and the Spaniards had
07:26 revolvers, shotguns, they had cannons and everything, and the mambises went up.
07:33 So where is the mambis blood that the Cuban has inside?
07:37 Where are they? Where are they?
07:40 I felt, really, that I got sick when I saw this Saray publication.
07:47 What a sadness, what a sadness that our hungry children are dying,
07:51 and you are still inside the house, waiting for what?
07:55 For the mambises to throw you out.
07:57 And while they, while Canelon, and all those who are in La Cúpula,
08:04 the family of the four, have their bellies full.
08:08 Miguel Díaz-Canel's son in the United States,
08:11 and all their children in the countries outside, living the sweet life,
08:16 while the people are dying of hunger.
08:18 They have created a chip for the Cuban, which is not,
08:22 that the United States is the worst.
08:24 They always throw it to the United States, and I want you to know that I am not in the United States.
08:27 And they have spoken of Latin America, that they are starving, and I don't know what else.
08:31 No, the Cuban who has gone to Latin America knows that here you work,
08:35 you pay your rent, you eat, and you live here with dignity.
08:41 Do you understand? You don't.
08:45 I feel sorry to see how children don't have food,
08:49 how children go to the hospital, children and anyone,
08:52 I who work in a hospital, that if there is no one who can tell me,
08:56 I, with my patients, there was no glove for me to put a probe,
09:00 there was no dextrose, there was nothing.
09:04 What were we going to treat the patients with?
09:07 What were we going to treat them with?
09:09 If he sent photos out and sent the images of the hospital,
09:13 we had to send the patients in bed outside, waiting.
09:16 When the COVID, how many patients died?
09:19 Not because they had the disease of COVID, because many did get worse,
09:22 and they were critical and died.
09:24 But many of us could have been saved and were not saved because of lack of medication,
09:28 lack of oxygen.
09:30 Do you understand?
09:32 It is sad to see how many professionals,
09:34 the best professionals have had to leave Cuba fleeing.
09:38 Why?
09:41 Why?
09:43 Cuba is not a medical power.
09:46 And they don't keep telling them, and they don't let the people of Cuba be fooled,
09:49 that no, because we give them free health and education.
09:53 In all the countries, I am in a third world country,
09:56 here in Latin America, where I hear the rumors,
09:59 here there are public schools and private schools,
10:03 and they have the right to live with dignity, with a salary,
10:07 I pay my rent, I work.
10:10 I have not died of hunger.
10:12 And when I did not have a job, I thank God for those brothers
10:16 who never left me alone, because I spent six and a half months
10:20 sick, unable to work.
10:22 Those are my brothers who did not leave me alone and helped me.
10:26 That is true.
10:28 They never left me alone, Maria Teresa Raffaelli,
10:30 Tania Roque in Spain,
10:32 my brothers from Spain, from Palma, Mallorca, who helped me,
10:36 and I was able to pay my rent and buy my medication.
10:39 Thanks to my pastor, my apostle.
10:41 Yes, that is true.
10:43 But Cuban gentlemen,
10:45 dad, mom,
10:47 the daughter, for the life of a son, is not capable of everything.
10:51 [BLANK_AUDIO]