Cuban hospitals are collapsing under the weight of a U.S. oil blockade that has plunged the island into daily blackouts and medical chaos. Patients like 21-year-old Jorge Pérez Álvarez, who relies on a ventilator for survival, face life-threatening risks as backup batteries fail during extended power outages. The crisis has transformed Cuba's once-proud universal health care system into a triage operation.

Doctors across Havana report preventable deaths mounting as surgeries are canceled and basic treatments become impossible. Pediatric anesthesiologist Dr. Alioth Fernandez says more children are dying than in previous years, while obstetrician Dr. Liliam Delgado Peruyera describes three newborn deaths in a single month at the nation's leading maternity hospital. The blockade has left hospitals without fuel for ambulances, medicine for pharmacies, and electricity for life-saving equipment.

Cuba's infant mortality rate has more than doubled since 2018, jumping from four to ten deaths per 1,000 births. The government reports 96,400 patients awaiting surgery and vaccine delays affecting 30,000 children. With factories shut down for lack of diesel and vaccine supplies spoiling without refrigeration, Cuban health workers describe making impossible choices about who receives care. As Stanford's Ruth Gibson warns, the oil blockade's impact will be 'exponentially more severe' than previous sanctions that already crippled the system.