Abstract
Given the marginal nature of psychiatry in terms of Western health priorities, it is always worth reviewing how countries with clearly different political systems treat their mentally ill. The 40-year economic embargo imposed by the USA on Cuba, the effects of which have been compounded by the hardships suffered during the ‘Special Period’ from 1989 onwards when the collapse of the Soviet Union left the island's economy in ruins (Pilling, 2001), is one of the most stringent of its kind. It prohibits the sale of food, and sharply restricts the sale of medicines and medical equipment, which, given the USA's pre-eminence in the pharmaceutical industry, effectively bars Cuba from purchasing nearly half of the new world class drugs on the market (Rojas Ochoa, 1997). Between 1989 and 1993, Cuba's gross domestic product fell by 35% and exports declined by 75% (Pan American Health Organisation, 1999). This has reduced the availability of resources and has adversely affected some health determinants and certain aspects of the population's health status. Despite this, however, Cuba has developed a system prioritised to primary and preventive care, with an infant mortality rate half that of the city of Washington, DC (World Health Organization & Pan American Health Organization, 1997; Casas et al, 2001). Furthermore, biotechnology and family medicine are being developed by Cuba as a human resource for other developing countries. Cuban medical schools also train physicians specifically for many developing countries around the world (Waitzkin et al, 1997).
Highlights
Between 1989 and 1993, Cuba's gross domestic product fell by 35% and exports declined by 75% (Pan American Health Organisation, 1999)
Our guides talked ofsocial therapy linked to the pharmacotherapies', as well as socialist transformation and other Marxist accounts that informed their understanding of mental illness
Our general impression from the visit to Hospital Psiquiatrico de la Habana (HPH) was of a positive attitude towards mental health, with much work being done in order to destigmatise those with mental illness
Summary
The original hospital was founded in 1853 and, as with European asylums, was designed to be outside the city. Prior to that time the only other psychiatric facilities were private clinics. Shown around an extensive archive of the hospital's history, and photographs and artefacts from this time certainly bore out these statements. The photographs from 1959 onwards show clean, white-clothed patients helping to build their own new hospital. These 6000 patients were incarcerated in a 2000-bed hospital, with the result that many of them were living on the floors of the wards and corridors. A range of physical disorders, including leprosy, were endemic, and there was, a wide mix of psychiatric presentations (learning disability, neurological conditions, psychosis, etc). There was a special ward for the children of patients (who were actively procreating)
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