Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Smaller subsidies
Government spending on public health per capita in 1999 was 21 percent lower than in 1989, according to economist Carmelo MesaLago. Official Cuban figures show that category of spending dropped from 11.3 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product in 2009 to eight percent in 2012.
Although Raquel is retired, government pharmacies do not subsidize the medicines she needs for her diabetes and hypertension. State social service programs do not serve elderly Cubans who live with relatives or other presumed caretakers.
“I get a pension of 240 pesos a month,” said Raquel, the equivalent of less than $10. “From that money, I have to pay 50 pesos for the Haier refrigerator the government forced me to buy and 100 pesos to buy my medicines.”
Cuba has about 300 daytime centers for the elderly and 144 nursing homes, with a total capacity of about 20,000 clients. Officials have acknowledged that a significant portion are in terrible shape, and many elderly prefer to go into one of the 11 homes across the country run by religious orders. They operate thanks to foreign assistance.
The state-run daycare centers charge 180 pesos per month and the nursing homes charge about 400 pesos. Social Security subsidizes the payments when social service workers determine that the clients cannot afford to pay those fees.
Cuba once had one of the most generous and broadest social security systems in Latin America. But that was largely possible because of the massive subsidies from the Soviet Union, calculated by Mesa-Lago at about $65 billion over 30 years.
“Although the pensions were never high, there was an elaborate system established by the state to facilitate access to food and other products at subsidized prices,” said the economist.
After the Soviet subsidies ended in the early 90s, pensions remained at about the same level but their purchasing power collapsed. In 1993, a retired Cuban could barely buy 16 percent of what he could afford in 1989. By the end of 2015, the purchasing power of retirees remained at barely half of what it was when the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba entered into the so-called “Special Period.”
“It bothers me when I hear talk of the good services for the elderly,” said Raquel. “I don’t get any subsidies because I live with my son, his wife and my two grandchildren. But they have their own expenses, and can’t afford to also pick up all of mine.
“I need new dentures,” she added, “and if you don’t give the dentist a little gift, they take months or come out bad.”
Other elderly residents on the island echoed Raquel’s sentiments.
“We are two old people living alone, we have no one overseas, so we receive no remittances,” said Andrés, a former cartographer who lives with his wife Silvia in the central city of Cienfuegos and now sells homemade vinegar and other products to make ends meet. “It’s very hard to get old and live off a $10 pension when four drumsticks of chicken cost $5.” special diet funds, the number was slashed to 175,106 by 2015.
Castro also removed several products from the highly subsidized ration card, such as soap, toothpaste and matches, forcing everyone to pay far more for those products when they bought them on the open market.
The government has launched some new programs for the elderly. The Sistema de Atención a la Familia (System to Help the Family), for example, allows more then 76,000 low-income elderly to obtain food at subsidized prices. That’s a tiny number compared to Cuba’s elderly population, estimated at more than 2 million in a nation of about 11 million.
Some elderly Cubans also receive assistance from churches and non-government organizations.
“People see me picking up cans, but they don’t know I was a prize-winning engineer and that I even traveled to the Soviet Union in 1983,” Raquel said.
Cuba does not have official statistics on poverty.
A 1996 government study concluded that 20.1 percent of the 2 million people in Havana were “at risk of not being able to afford a basic necessity.” A poll in 2000 found that 78 percent of the country’s elderly complained their income was not enough to cover their expenses.
The majority of the elderly polled said their main sources of income were their pension benefits, assistance from relatives on the island and remittances sent by relatives and friends abroad.
Many elderly now walk the streets in Havana and other cities, selling homemade candy or peanuts to make ends meet. Others resell newspapers or pick through garbage for items to sell. The number of beggars on the streets of Cuba’s main cities has visibly increased.