UPDATE: Reuters has now recanted on the offensive headline that this story originally carried.
Ace of Spades links to a story about the death of renegade CIA agent Philip Agee. He was a hero of the international left, second only to cop-killer Mumia abu Jamal.
I don’t think Agee was ever nominated for a Nobel Prize and now it’s too late.
They don’t give them posthumously.
As reported on Yahoo News:
“His wife, Giselle Roberge Agee, said Agee was hospitalized in Havana on Dec. 16 and underwent surgery for perforated ulcers. He died Monday because of a related infection and his remains were cremated.”
So much for that vaunted Cuban health system.
He and Fidel whose colon anastomosis leaked. They had to get Spanish surgeons to fix him. I see a lot of stuff about how good they are with primary care from non-doctors. Potemkin, I think they call it.
Dear Dr. K.: I have read that the “good” Cuban physicians get sent out of the country as part of that “Cuban Medicine in the Americas” program. And it is absolutely true that the well to do—or politically connected—get better care. Why is that a surprise? It has always been true, and I don’t see an easy way around it.
The part that always, always makes me laugh are the people who go on and on about health care (including our local premed advisor) who have never, ever worked in a hospital in any capacity, nor done extensive reading…other than some kind of screed in Mother Jones.
It’s like the infant mortality statistics comparing Cuba and the US. Cuba seems better (marginally), but then—if you dig down into the data—you discover that in Cuba, a pregnancy with any complications is almost routinely terminated….unlike here, where we try very hard to save the very premature babies.
Anyway…. Agee is currently in a warmer climate than Cuba, I suspect.