Cuba says US sanctions worsen blackouts, delaying 96,000 surgeries
Blackouts and fuel shortages have pushed Cuba’s surgical backlog past 96,000, with 11,000 children waiting as hospitals, water trucks and vaccines all strained.
More than 96,000 surgeries were waiting across Cuba, including 11,000 for children, as blackouts and fuel shortages kept operating rooms dark and forced hospitals to ration care. Miguel Díaz-Canel blamed U.S. sanctions for the damage, casting the energy crisis as collective punishment, while the United Nations said the backlog had become a systemwide public-health emergency.
The pressure on Cuba’s health system sharpened after Washington took measures at the end of January 2026 to block oil supplies from entering the island. United Nations officials said the humanitarian strain deepened by late March, even after limited fuel arrived, including a Russian oil shipment allowed to dock. In Havana and beyond, the shortage of diesel has hit more than power generation: the UN said roughly one million people depended on water trucking, and those deliveries were being squeezed by the fuel crunch.
Hospitals have been hit at every level. The World Health Organization warned that Cuban hospitals were struggling to keep emergency and intensive care services running during the outages, and Reuters reported on March 26 that blackouts were disrupting those units. Cuban health officials said the energy shock was also affecting 16,000 cancer patients who need radiotherapy, 12,400 who need chemotherapy, and nearly 3,000 dialysis patients whose treatment depends on stable power. Reuters also reported that Cuba’s health system had been deteriorating for years, with burnout, low pay and side jobs becoming part of daily life for doctors trying to stay afloat.
The crisis has spread far beyond surgery schedules. The United Nations said thousands of infants were seeing delays in the National Immunization Programme, while some reports said about 32,000 pregnant women may not have received the three ultrasounds recommended during pregnancy. The UN tied the broader emergency to Hurricane Melissa, which struck Cuba in late October 2025, and said fuel shortages were limiting aid already stored in the country. For Cuban families, the result has been a hard-to-separate mix of politics, power cuts and collapsing infrastructure, with the country’s once-vaunted health system now carrying the cost in waiting lists, missed treatments and longer nights without light.
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