Authorities feared footage of gleaming hospital in Michael Moore's Oscar-nominated film would provoke a popular backlash http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/17/wikileaks-cuba-banned-sicko Cuba banned Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a "mythically" favourable picture of Cuba's healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a "popular backlash", according to US diplomats in Havana. The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks , is surprising, given that the film attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system. But the memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so "disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room". Castro's government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it "knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them." Sicko investigated healthcare in the US by comparing the for-profit, non-universal US system with the non-profit universal health care systems of other countries, including Cuba, France and the UK. It was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary feature but was also castigated for being naive and tendentious. The cable comes from the United States Interests Section in Havana (USINT) – staffed by US foreign service personnel and local staff employed by the department of state, the unit is formally a section of the Embassy of Switzerland, although it operates independently of the Swiss in virtually all but protocol respects. The secret 2008 cable is based on reports from the USINT's foreign service health practitioner (FSHP) of her conversations with local people, unauthorised visits to Cuban hospitals, and experience of helping USINT American and Cuban personnel access healthcare. The cable describes a visit made by the FSHP to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in October 2007. Built in 1982, the newly renovated hospital was used in Michael Moore's film as evidence of the high-quality of healthcare available to all Cubans. But according to the FSHP, the only way a Cuban can get access to the hospital is through a bribe or contacts inside the hospital administration. "Cubans are reportedly very resentful that the best hospital in Havana is 'off-limits' to them," the memo reveals. According to the FSHP, a more "accurate" view of the healthcare experience of Cubans can be seen at the Calixto Garcia Hospital. "FSHP believes that if Michael Moore really wanted the 'same care as local Cubans', this is where he should have gone," the cable states. A 2007 visit by the FSHP to this "dilapidated" hospital, built in the 1800s, was "reminiscent of a scene from some of the poorest countries in the world," the cable adds. The memo points out that even the Cuban ruling elite leave Cuba when they need medical care. Fidel Castro, for example, brought in a Spanish doctor during his health crisis in 2006. The vice-minister of health, Abelardo Ramirez, went to France for gastric cancer surgery. The neurosurgeon whoheads CIMEQ [Centro de Investigaciones Médico-Quirúrgicas] hospital – widely regarded as one of the best in Cuba – came to England for eye surgery, returning periodically for checkups. "After living in Cuba for two and a half years, treating numerous Cuban employees at USINT, and interacting with many other Cubans, the FSHP believes … preventive medicine in Cuba is a by-gone ideal, rather than the standard practice of care," the memo concludes.WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system
Saturday, December 18, 2010
WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
MICHAEL MOORE CHALLENGED ON HEALTH CARE IN CUBA
"All the world health organizations or whatever [sic] have confirmed that if there's one thing they do right in Cuba, it's health care. And there's very little debate about that."
-- Michael Moore
Reporter John Stossel of 20/20 has the following interesting observations about Michael Moore's claims concerning the state of Cuban healthcare in his "documentary" Sicko:
1. As we previously reported, Moore did not visit representative hospitals, but only elite institutions.
2. The United Nations report that Moore relies upon to support his claims of medical nirvana in Cuba did not gather any data. It simply repeated data given to it by the Cuban government itself, a government that is a crazed dictatorship with no checks on its power or accuracy.
3. Cuba's fetal mortality rates are grossly understated because of the national practice of aborting sick fetuses before they are born and of classifying a fetus which perishes within a few hours of being born as never having been born at all.
4. Moore stated: "All the independent health organizations in the world, and even our own CIA, believes that the Cubans have a pretty good health system. And they do, in fact, live longer than we do." Stossel asked the CIA, and it stated that it never made such a conclusion about Cuban health care; it stated that its data shows Americans live significantly longer on average than Cubans.
5. When challenged with these facts by Stossel, Moore tried to change the subject: "Let's stick to Canada and Britain and this stuff, I think you should challenge me on these things, and I'll give you my answer."
The prosecution rests.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
MICHAEL MOORE AND CUBA
No doubt that Michael Moore is a lightning rod for controversy. Moore in reference to Cuba has in the past not been any less controversial in his remarks. (Click here for his comments concerning Cuban exiles calling them nutty and even making remarks similar to Hitler's comments about how Jews are involved, at least in the background, in various nefarious events). It is obvious that Moore has, as a human being, let alone an American, the right to travel where ever he damn well chooses. But it is even more obvious that he has the right to speak saying things that many find repugnant. Freedom for the thought many hate is important to ensure our rights are not violated. However his right to speak also permits the rights of others to criticize his positions on politics. This includes but isn't limited to, his apparent defense of Cuba's dictatorial system. Michael Moore like many pro government characters, just don't get it when it comes to Cuba; here's an article from NATIONAL REVIEW:
May 22, 2007 12:00 AM
Sicko
Michael Moore's sickness.
By Rich Lowry
Is all that ails the U.S. health-care system that it’s not run by a Communist dictatorship? That has long been a premise of apologists for Fidel Castro who extol the virtues of medical care on his totalitarian island nation.
Left-wing documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is reviving this Cold War relic of an argument in his new movie on health care, Sicko, which premieres in a few weeks and favorably compares the Cuban health-care system to ours. Moore ostentatiously took a few sick 9/11 workers to Cuba for care. “If they can do this,” Moore told Time, referring to the Cubans, “we can do it.”
All that the Cuban government has done, however, is run a decades-long propaganda campaign to convince credulous or dishonest people that its health-care system is worth emulating. These people believe — or pretend to believe for ideological reasons — that a dictatorship can crush a country’s economy and spirit, yet still deliver exemplary medical care.
Cuban health care works only for the select few: if you are a high-ranking member of the party or the military and have access to top-notch clinics; or a health-care tourist who can pay in foreign currency at a special facility catering to foreigners; or a documentarian who can be relied upon to produce a lickspittle film whitewashing the system.
Ordinary Cubans experience the wasteland of the real system. Even aspirin and Pepto-Bismol can be rare, and there’s a black market for them. According to a report in the Canadian National Post: “Hospitals are falling apart, surgeons lack basic supplies and must reuse latex gloves. Patients must buy their sutures on the black market and provide bed sheets and food for extended hospital stays.”
How could it be any different when Cuba embarked on a campaign of economic self-sabotage with the revolution of 1959? It went from third in per capita food consumption in Latin America to near the bottom, according to a State Department report. Per capita consumption of basic foodstuffs like cereals and meat actually has declined from the 1950s. There are fewer cars (true of no other country in the hemisphere), and development of electrical power has trailed every other Latin American country except Haiti.
But the routine medical care, we’re supposed to believe, is superb. The statistic frequently cited for this proposition is that Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America. Put aside that the reflexively dishonest Cuban government is the ultimate source for these figures. Cuba had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America prior to the revolution and has lost ground to other countries around the world since. It also has an appallingly high abortion rate, meaning most problem pregnancies are pre-emptively ended.
Other countries in Latin America have made advances in health without Cuba’s vicious suppression of human rights (which, no doubt, contributes to the island having the highest suicide rate in Latin America). The way public health works in Cuba was nicely illustrated by the case of Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero, who complained of an outbreak of dengue fever that the regime preferred to ignore in the late 1990s, and was jailed for his trouble.
As is always the case with Cuba, anything that’s wrong is blamed on the United States. If there is a shortage of medicine, well, that’s because of the U.S. embargo. But the United States is not the only country in the world that sells drugs. Cuba could buy them from Europe or elsewhere, and the U.S. embargo makes an exception for medicines.
The only reason to fantasize about Cuban health care is to stick a finger in the eye of the Yanquis. For the likes of Michael Moore, the true glory of Cuba is less its health care than the fact that it is an enemy of the United States. That’s why romanticizing Cuban medicine isn’t just folly, but itself qualifies as a kind of sickness.
© 2007 by King Features Syndicate
