Desperate Mother in Banes Appeals for Help for Her Sick Daughter

A mother from Banes, Holguín, has taken to social media to make a desperate plea, highlighting the neglect faced by vulnerable families in Cuba, particularly those with sick children reliant on government assistance for survival.

Her daughter, who suffers from epilepsy and recently underwent surgery for a gastrostomy and tracheostomy—procedures demanding continuous care, specialized nutrition, and electricity for suctioning secretions—is at risk due to the lack of support from local authorities, despite multiple requests for aid.

In a public Facebook post, the mother, Alianis Ronda, shares the dire circumstances: her daughter can only be fed through a tube directly into her stomach and needs frequent suctioning, necessitating a constant power supply.

The government provided a solar panel, yet it remains unusable due to defective batteries, and nobody has addressed her appeals for repair or replacement.

Without electricity, the family cannot properly prepare the blended foods that are essential for the girl's exclusive diet.

"As mothers know, you can cook on three stones, but what can you do to blend it (the food)?" laments Alianis, who resorts to manually mashing food and straining it, which fails to provide the necessary nutrients.

"What I'm giving her is water," she writes, distressed by her inability to feed her daughter as her medical condition requires.

The mother reports having sought help from municipal government institutions without any resolution: she has been told merely to "wait."

However, she emphasizes that the health of a dependent child cannot be subject to the same deferred promises typical of the authorities.

"They used to say children were a priority, but now I see that isn't true. Maybe if my daughter were a government official's child or someone holding a position, they would have given it to me right away," she criticizes.

Following Hurricane Melissa, the situation has worsened, Alianis asserts. She accuses the local government of failing to visit even emergency-affected homes, while other municipalities distribute milk and other supplies.

Although a milk-based diet has been prescribed for her daughter, they have never received assistance. She has been forced to buy it at 200 pesos per bag, an exorbitant cost for families reliant on state salaries.

"It's an outrage across the board," she concludes, warning that if she does not receive an answer, she will "seek out those who will listen to a desperate mother who can endure no more."

A Cry Echoing Thousands

This mother's outcry does not merely highlight an isolated failure. It exposes the everyday vulnerability faced by families with sick children in a country that claims to prioritize medical care and social protection.

The scarcity of resources, the decline in public services following weather disasters, and the inequity in accessing aid—which appears to favor those with political connections—leave children like this girl at risk of death.

While official rhetoric insists "we are all equal," Alianis Ronda's experience reveals how, in vulnerable sectors, that equality becomes an empty promise: a child's health and life can literally depend on whether their family has political ties.