US Transnational Refuses to Sell Medical Equipment to Cuba

CUBA, September 29, 2009.  The US transnational Cook Vascular Inc. has refused to sell Cuba devices for the extraction of pacemaker-related electrodes or damaged cables implanted in the heart cavities.
 
This inhumane behavior, which is a consequence of the unjust US blockade of the Caribbean nation, was denounced in Havana by D. Sc. Francisco Dorticos Balea, head of the Department of Arrhythmias and Pacemakers at the Institute of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery in Havana.

Granma newspaper reports that these devices facilitate the replacement of these electrodes without performing ‘open heart’ surgeries.

Each pacemaker has one or two electrodes that have to be replaced after a certain period of time because of damages caused by the cable aging or blows that it may suffer due to adhesions and, mainly, infections of the cavities of the heart (endocarditis).

The replacement of electrodes is a usual medical procedure in Cuba, where, over the past 10 years, more than 20,000 pacemakers have been implanted.

Dorticos said that they have made the petition on several occasions and that the answer is always the same: “after consulting with the top authorities of Cook Vascular they say that they are not allowed to sell anything to Cuba.” (Cubaminrex- ACN)