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Originally Posted by AaronSJ
I've been to Cuban hospitals and clinics -- it's not "that good", as their biggest problem is a chronic shortage of supplies... they simply do without many basic items (drugs, bandages, dressings, etc.).
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I believe a lot of this is due to the American embargo and collapse of the USSR. USSR used to help ship a lot of goods to Cuba, but when it collapsed all those shipments stopped.
As much as I would like to blame the unions, there is a nursing shortage and even if there were beds available there simply aren't the staff to take care of the people who would occupy them.
But I do thing there is a real issue with using resources. Last year a co-workers wife needed an emergency Cat-scan. I was told they sat in the cat-scan waiting area, by themselves, for over 2 hours. They could see the door to the scanning room. No one went in or out. There was a bunch of staff around. Then they got in and it was a short process and they were on their way. Why was a machine, for which it seems there is so much demand, sitting unused for so long?
I've heard that doctors have limits set on the amount of time that they are allowed to bill for. Does anyone know about this? If each doctor could conceiveably have a few hundered hours extra they could work, I would have no issue with them using those hours in for profit activities. As long as the majority of their time would still be in the standard public system.