The contemporary health care system of Cuba develops in association with two main but opposite tendencies.
On the one hand, the Cuban health care system remains to be one of the most patient-oriented systems in the world because of focusing on family doctors and preventive medicine, while accentuating the moral aspect in relation to the health care (Andaya 2009: 358).
On the other hand, the Cuban government has to overcome the problems associated with the economic development of the country and sphere of health care because of the lack of financial resources to support it (Cuba’s Emphasis, December 21, 2010).
The current development of the country’s health care system depends on the collapse of the Soviet Union significantly because the socialist country’s fall influenced the economic system of Cuba.
Thus, in spite of the fact that the Cuban health care system develops independently during more than twenty years, the collapse of the Soviet Union affected it negatively, causing the crisis in funding the sphere and influencing the Cuban government’s approach to finding new investments and medicine resources, and also positively, reforming the system and affecting indirectly the development of the biotech industry.
The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in revealing many challenges for the development of the Cuban health care system. Thus, the system had to develop within new contexts of the local and global economies, suffering from the lack of funding and available material resources.
The collapse led to the significant economic crisis in Cuba; the sphere of the health care was not funded appropriately without the Soviet Union’s subsidies and investments; and the following U.S. embargo caused the further economic decline in relation to the health care system.
As a result, today the Cuban patients cannot rely on the effective treatment in spite of the provided opportunities for it because of the lack of medicines because of the U.S. embargo, and physicians cannot rely on the adequate material rewards (Cuba’s Emphasis, December 21, 2010).
Thus, the system of the gift exchange is still relevant in relation to the Cuban society because of availability of gifts as resources to pay for the physicians’ efforts in the situation when the other resources are not available for the impoverished Cuban population (Andaya 2009: 358).
From this point, the collapse of the Soviet Union broke the stable economic system of the socialist country because of ceasing subsidies and provoking the U.S. embargo. The Cuban government faced such problems as the shortages in funding and resources.
However, Cuba, as the socialist country continued to follow the main principles of the patient-oriented health care. The significant economic crisis caused some unintended positive changes in the health care system of Cuba.
The principles of providing the free and universal care were preserved, and the main focus was kept on the effective preventive medicine depending on the system of family doctors. As a result, the high rates in relation to birth and life expectancy were preserved.
The impossibility to provide the adequate material rewards for doctors influenced the emphasis on the moral aspects of the preventive medicine and the system of family doctors.
Moreover, the lack of medicines was overcome not only with references to the development of preventive medicine as the approach to preserving the well-being of the nation but also with the help of biotech industry’s development (Cuba’s Emphasis, December 21, 2010).
Today, the Cuban health care system is oriented to coping with the experienced challenges with references to the country’s resources, as it is observed in relation to developing the biotech industry.
Works Cited
Andaya, Elise. “The Gift of Health: Socialist Medical Practice and Shifting Material and Moral Economies in Post-Soviet Cuba”. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 23.4 (2009): 357-374. Print.
Cuba’s Emphasis on Preventive Medicine. 21 Dec. 2010. Web.