MIAMI, United States. — Elderly Cubans living in the municipality of Banes, Holguín province, denounced before CubaNet the difficult situation in which they survive.
These are people in vulnerable conditions who have to make do with a paltry checkbook and who lack the necessary medicines and means to improve their quality of life.
“My checkbook is 1,678 pesos. The old woman and I live. I am 81 years old, the old woman is 73 and she is sick, she has three or four illnesses. I am also sick, ”José Ramón Barca González told this newspaper that he claims to have almost completely lost his vision.
Both Barca González and his wife depend financially on retirement, which “is not enough for anything.”
Hilda Infante Gómez, 64, regretted not having a refrigerator at this point in her life where she might store her asthma medications. This is not the only problem for Hilda, who doesn’t even have a stove to cook on.
Edesia Amalia Jorge Pérez also lives in Banes, an elderly Cuban woman with bone problems and who survives without a suitable wheelchair to alleviate her health problems.
The woman lost her house several years ago due to a total collapse and the authorities have never resolved anything for her, despite having made various promises.
They have come “pretending that they were going to help me, and a lie,” said Edesia Amalia.
Although many of these elderly people believed in and supported Fidel Castro’s Revolution, today they find themselves abandoned to their fate and without the support that the Government promised them so much.
“All the members of my family were combatants of this Revolution,” lamented Edesia Amalia, to whom the authorities repeat over and over once more that she has not received help “because there are worse cases.”
Last year, the Center for Psychological and Sociological Research of Cuba (CIPS) indicated that the main deficiencies of the elderly on the island were food, medicines, glasses and the poor condition of the houses.
