Blogger’s Note: The Americans eulogise JFK – but he is the President who authorised that (failed) Bay of Pigs Invasion – and then placed an (illegal) blockade around the island of Cuba when it failed (in 1961). Trump has added even more and severe restrictions which the UK and EU blindly follows. This how Bush strangled Iraq during the 1990s by targetting baby milk and medicines for children and pregnant women and the disabled. The UN condemned these sanctions but took no action to stop or prevent their application. The UN follows exactly the same attitude toward the US aggression against Cuba. One thing is for sure, if Cubs fals – the suffering of the Cuban people will be magnified immeasurably. ACW (5.2.2026)
by MINSAP Editorial Team · 5 February 2026 – Written by Redacción MINSAP
Ariannis César Martínez is one of the 17 patients in the paediatric ward of the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology in the capital (Havana), who see in their will to live the most powerful weapon to face cancer.
At only four years old and her kidneys being victims of this pathology, the little girl from Matanzas maintains the hyperactivity and joy characteristic of age, according to her mother, Arlenis Martínez Scull.
He commented that from the family environment the all possible effort is applied to maintain the happiness of an infant who has experienced different surgical interventions.
After receiving the news of her daughter’s illness, Martínez Scull said that she wakes up every day grateful to God for giving her the strength to face her daughter’s condition, which has become her only priority.
Despite the country’s difficulties, this young woman recognized the effort made by the Cuban Health System (delivered “free” at the point of use) to meet Ariannis’ needs, from her transfer from Yumurino territory, to her entire process in the hospital.
She also stressed that although she lacks many resources, she has no words to thank the doctors for the effort they make so that her daughter receives the most effective treatment for her condition.
On a day commemorating World Cancer Day, Cuba does not give up on its intention to ensure the living conditions of its patients, despite the fact that the tightening of the U.S. blockade greatly hinders this high-priority management for the nation.
In the centre, Dr. Carlos Alberto Martínez Blanco, head of the Session for Cancer Control of the Ministry of Public Health, explained that the island, in its purpose of ensuring assistance to people with this pathology, tries to acquire more up-to-date work tools abroad, but U.S. policy prevents access to them.
He argued that regardless of the imperialist actions, including the new measures applied, Cuba will continue to defend health as a right of the people.
Luis Martín Rodríguez, director of the oncology centre, pointed out that none of the medical services to the population have been suspended in the institution, regardless of the limitations intensified by the order of U.S. President Donald Trump.
He also reaffirmed the commitment of the group to continue giving the best of itself in a difficult context marked by the political, social and economic siege of the archipelago.
Mariuzka Forteza Sáez, a second-degree specialist in paediatric oncology and head of that ward at the institute, pointed out that this is a service that has 20 beds and is linked to a national network where the most complex cases go through the centre’s professionals, in which they are treated until the age of 19.
With an annual incidence of close to 400 cases, he stressed that the interventionist measures of the U.S. government affect the treatment of those infants who need it because there are difficulties with medications and supplies essential for clinical evolution.
In Cuba, more than 50 thousand cases of cancer are registered every year, with breast cancer being the most common in women and prostate cancer in men, so on this date the country insists on the importance of life.
Jessica Jimenez Gainza and Yadira Medero Mora | Photos: Omara García Mederos (ACN) and Granma Newspaper
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 