By Roberto Morejón

The Cuban State reaffirms its active and responsible participation in services in the new Health Law, recently approved in parliament.
 
At a time when private medicine is still booming in the world and many middle and low-income sectors are demanding state health aid, the largest of the Antilles is recognizing new prerogatives and services in this field.
 
It is true that in this Caribbean nation there was a Health Law passed four decades ago that advocated free access for citizens to hospitals, polyclinics, family doctors in the neighborhoods and other aids.
 
But medicine and society are advancing and discoveries, procedures and universal strategies are on the rise, which is why Cuba decided to keep up with international advances.
 
The new regulation, described as novel by experts and officials, has the significance of adding issues related to the decision on the end of life, marks the relationship with the fauna, flora and environment and defines the prophylactic, promotional and preventive orientation in the face of diseases.
 
In addition to reaffirming the solidarity-based nature of the healthcare system, including assistance abroad, the new guideline endorses the principle of quality in the services provided to citizens.
 
And this connotation extends to assisted reproduction techniques for infertile couples, among other protections derived from the approval of a modern Family Code in the land of José Martí.
 
And a very important issue is highlighted in the new Health Law in Cuba, the adequate protection of workers who prevent and cure ailments all year round.
 
Aimed at ensuring a strategic perspective for the years to come, the legal body of reference arrives in difficult circumstances, since health care institutions do not escape from accentuated material shortages.
 
This is so because of the intensified U.S. blockade, financial derivations of the hard stage of confronting the pandemic, the effects of the international crisis and the reality that the country has no access to bank loans.
 
Hospitals and polyclinics must make efforts to make up for shortages of supplies and equipment defects, but the traditional professionalism and altruism of doctors, nurses and technicians tries to counteract the adversities.
 
The new Health Law protects such care and attention from a higher legal approach.