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A CBS report documents blackouts, shortages and a death at the William Soler children's hospital
CBS News program 60 Minutes filmed a power cut in the pediatric ward of Havana's William Soler hospital. Doctors described shortages of anesthetics and cancer drugs, operations finished by the light of mobile phones, and the death of a malnourished baby. The report aired on November 1.
The team from 60 Minutes, the program on US network CBS, filmed a power cut inside the pediatric ward of Havana's William Soler hospital as doctors waited for the generator to start. The report aired on November 1.
"Those few seconds might seem insignificant to someone outside the medical field, but they're precious seconds when you're dealing with a patient under general anesthesia or a patient on a ventilator in the intensive care unit," Dr. Alejandro Chong told the program. When the generators fail, the doctors interviewed said, they have completed surgical procedures by the light of mobile phones and have supplied oxygen by hand to critically ill patients.
Doctors and residents described shortages of anesthetics, cancer drugs and laboratory materials, as well as fewer staff on hand. An abandoned baby, two months old and weighing under five pounds, was admitted with malnutrition: the hospital did not have the specialized formula he needed and doctors fell back on preparations made from malanga, a starchy root vegetable, and chicken. The boy left intensive care, suffered respiratory complications, returned to the unit and died, the head of the ward told the program.
The report also featured a small girl waiting for a component for an artificial lung machine needed to operate on her: the part, which normally arrives within two days, had been pending for 68 days when the journalists met her.
The crisis reaches health workers too. The head of pediatric intensive care at the William Soler earns more from a food stand than from his medical job, and a pediatric surgery resident tops up her income as a radio announcer. "There are fewer personnel, fewer resources, and it makes all the work we're doing much more difficult," Dr. Lórien Rodríguez told the program.
Outside the hospitals, the program showed long lines for bread, shops with few goods and parts of Old Havana with no street lighting at night because of the power cuts. At one street stall visited by the team, medicines were being sold in small doses, a route for those who cannot obtain them through state channels.
The report frames the deterioration in the loss of the island's main oil supplier and in tighter US sanctions, and records Washington's argument that the regime has mismanaged the country for decades and that its officials have hoarded billions of dollars. Cuban deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío conceded to the program that "there could be decisions that could have been better," but pointed to "an external, very powerful factor" as decisive.
Sources: Infobae · CBS News (60 Minutes) · CBS News, transcripción de 60 Minutes · Serie Yamacoa: Mortalidad infantil (ONEI / MINSAP)
Data updated: 2026-11-08T04:15:00.000Z