As of September 27, 2026, Cuba’s health and human-rights situation is severe. The most important development is that what began as an economic and energy crisis is increasingly affecting the basic conditions required for health: medicine, electricity, clean water, sanitation, food, transportation and functioning hospitals.
The bottom line
Cuba still has a nationwide public-health system, trained medical personnel and significant medical/biotechnology capacity. But its ability to deliver reliable care has deteriorated sharply.
PAHO describes the country as facing a combination of economic crisis, medicine and supply shortages, migration of healthcare workers, energy disruption and public-health threats.
The situation is now best understood as:
Energy → water → sanitation → food → healthcare → human well-being
When electricity fails, several other human rights can deteriorate simultaneously.
1. Access to medicine is critically constrained
Cuban authorities reported this summer that only about 30% of medicines on the essential medicines list were available. The government has also reported major difficulties providing cancer treatment, dialysis, prenatal diagnostics and vaccinations.
The shortages are not limited to sophisticated drugs. They affect routine medicines, hospital supplies and medical transportation.
At the same time, Cuba has restarted domestic production of some cancer medicines, illustrating that parts of its biotechnology and manufacturing infrastructure continue to function.
2. Electricity has become a health issue
Cuba’s electrical grid collapsed again on September 18, leaving much of the island without power. Reuters reported that some rolling outages have lasted more than 30 hours. Hospitals receive priority during restoration, but repeated failures directly affect refrigeration, water pumping, medical equipment, pharmacies and food preservation.
This is no longer simply an energy-sector problem.
Electricity failure → healthcare disruption + spoiled food + water problems + communications failure
3. Water and sanitation are becoming increasingly important risks
Earlier this month, the U.S. Embassy issued a health alert regarding reports of increasing intestinal illness and diarrhea, citing deteriorating water and electricity infrastructure. That alert is a warning rather than a comprehensive national epidemiological survey, but it is consistent with the broader infrastructure problems documented by PAHO.
PAHO has previously warned that interruptions to potable water, inadequate sanitation and prolonged power failures increase Cuba’s vulnerability to communicable diseases.
4. Food security and affordability are affecting health
Food may be physically available in some private markets, but affordability has become a major barrier.
Reuters reported on September 21 that inflation, currency depreciation and stagnant incomes continue to make basic necessities unaffordable for many Cubans.
That distinction matters:
Food availability does not equal food access.
For pensioners and people without remittances or access to foreign currency, purchasing adequate food can be particularly difficult. Reuters reported in June that Cuba’s elderly population is especially vulnerable as pensions have lost substantial purchasing power while food, transportation and medicine costs have increased.
5. Older people are among the most vulnerable
More than one-quarter of Cuba’s population is over 60, according to reporting cited by Reuters.
That produces an especially dangerous intersection:
Aging population + medicine shortages + low pensions + transportation problems + declining healthcare capacity
For people with cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes or other chronic illnesses, interruptions in medication and medical transportation can turn an economic shortage into a health emergency.
6. Health conditions in prisons raise a separate human-rights issue
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International continue to document allegations of inadequate medical treatment, poor food, sanitation problems and deteriorating health among prisoners, including people imprisoned following political protests.
Human Rights Watch reported in July that Cuban rights organizations estimate roughly 800 political prisoners remain imprisoned, nearly half connected to the July 2021 demonstrations.
Amnesty continues to report arbitrary detention, surveillance and restrictions on dissent.
This means Cuba’s human-rights situation has two overlapping dimensions:
Economic and social rights:
health, food, water, electricity, housing and basic living conditions.
Civil and political rights:
expression, peaceful assembly, detention, due process and treatment of prisoners.
Both are under considerable pressure.
7. There is an important dispute over responsibility
It would be misleading to attribute Cuba’s health crisis to a single cause.
Cuba faces longstanding problems including aging infrastructure, low productivity, economic distortions, declining government capacity, migration of healthcare professionals and domestic policy failures. PAHO specifically identifies economic pressures, shortages and migration of healthcare personnel as factors weakening the health system.
At the same time, U.S. sanctions and especially the intensified restrictions on fuel introduced in 2026 are having measurable effects on electricity, transportation, food distribution and healthcare.
UN human-rights experts warned in April that fuel restrictions were affecting rights to health, food, water, sanitation, education and development, including Cuba’s ability to perform surgeries and maintain vaccination programs.
So the evidence points to a compound crisis rather than a single culprit:
**Domestic structural weaknesses
- deteriorating infrastructure
- economic contraction
- workforce migration
- U.S. sanctions and fuel restrictions
= declining capacity to guarantee basic rights.**
The larger human-rights signal
The most concerning development is not any one shortage.
It is the loss of redundancy across interconnected systems.
A hospital can survive a medicine shortage if transportation and electricity work.
A community can survive an electrical outage if water, food refrigeration and communications continue functioning.
An elderly person can survive inflation if healthcare, transportation and food remain accessible.
But when all of these systems deteriorate simultaneously, resilience disappears.
That is increasingly the situation Cuba is confronting.
MOBILIZED HUMAN RIGHTS ASSESSMENT
- Right to health: Severe pressure
- Access to medicines: Critical
- Food security: Severe pressure, particularly affordability
- Water + sanitation: Elevated risk
- Electricity: Critical infrastructure vulnerability
- Older-person well-being: High vulnerability
- Prisoner health and treatment: Serious human-rights concerns
- Freedom of expression + assembly: Heavily restricted
- Overall human well-being: Deteriorating
Cuba is increasingly experiencing not simply an economic crisis or a healthcare crisis, but an interconnected human-rights systems crisis.
The important question over the coming weeks is whether the country’s remaining health, food, water and energy infrastructure can continue compensating for failures elsewhere—or whether those failures begin reinforcing one another.