U.S. WOMEN AND CUBA COLLABORATION

 

 

US Women and Cuba Collaboration and WILPF’s Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee members joined leaders of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and National Union of Cuban Jurists (UNJC)  for the March 2026 UN CSW NGO in New York. We presented two NY workshops to address the critical situation of Cuban lives and sovereignty.  Our workshops, Defend Cuban Women’s Model Healthcare: End the US Economic Blockade, were particularly significant given the latest deadly conditions that the Trump administration has placed on the Cuban people to force regime change.

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The 65-year US blockade of Cuba now includes an oil embargo as well as alarming direct military threats by the Trump administration, which usurp the role of Congress required by the US Constitution’s division of war powers.  Most recently, a May 1 executive order extends wide-ranging secondary sanctions that prohibit all forms of international material aid to any official Cuban organization. In Trump’s own words about Cuba: “I could do anything I want with it.”  These unilateral coercive measures (UNMs) violate international law, the UN Charter, and directly endanger the sovereignty of the Cuban nation.

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In both our UN Commission on the Status of Women NGO workshop (virtual) and our workshop at the annual US-Cuba Normalization Conference (in-person), we highlighted escalated circumstances of this cruel US blockade, which disproportionately affects the lives of women and children. Our voices were vital as we laid out intentions for a future Campaign to support pregnant women and decrease maternal and infant mortality, an issue that has risen to new heights given the impact on Cuba’s healthcare and food systems from the blockade and oil embargo.

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PLEASE  join us in our efforts to lift the blockade and oil embargo through participating in our campaigns, by traveling to Cuba (which is still legal), and by donating money to organizations providing material aid to the Cuban people. We plan to join Global Health Partners in a new campaign to focus on neonatal and maternal healthcare.  

 

Watch US Women & Cuba Collaboration’s website for our delegation in the Fall!

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OUR WORK/WHAT WE DO: 

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US Women and Cuba Collaboration and WILPF-US Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee work together to build a strong US women’s movement dedicated to ending the US government blockade of Cuba and to creating mutually beneficial US-Cuba relations; our work is rooted in the concept of universal human rights, racial and economic justice, and women’s rights. We are women-led, multicultural volunteer NGOs working in liaison with organizations that also support the principles of diversity, equality, and inclusion, stepping up to say that US policy on Cuba must be just and peaceful. 

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OUR WORKSHOPS: 

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With Cuban colleagues, we spoke to audiences about how the Cuban Revolution’s healthcare model has been fundamental to advancing women’s human rights through universal access, equity, culturally appropriate healthcare, research and development, and about how this benefitted everyone—including Afrodescendants, LGBTQIA+ people, girls, elders—by institutionalizing community clinics, sexual and reproductive health, gender affirming rights, prenatal and maternal care. We focused on the cruel US government blockade, which is destroying Cuba’s public health system, increasing maternal and infant mortality, embargoing medical supplies and equipment, and burdening women’s childbearing decisions.

Defend Cuban Women’s Model Healthcare Workshop Videos:

#1 Maybel Gonzalez of Cuba defends Cuban Women’s Model Healthcare!

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#2 Vice President of the National Union of Cuban Jurists, Yamila González Ferrer, defends Cuba!

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#3 Bob Schwartz and Cindy Domingo speak out to defend Cuban Women’s Model Healthcare!

 

ACTIONS / WHAT YOU CAN DO

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• Support funding of the Cuba Maternal and Infant Healthcare Campaign through Global Health Partners (see projected campaign overview at the end of this report). Global Health Partners

• Write and call our Congressional Representatives! Be a strong voice for pro-Cuba legislative actions. Uphold Congressional War Powers & Oppose Cuba Interventions

• Sign up for Action Alerts from: ACERE Action Alerts and DSA Solidarity

• Get Cuba Off the SSOT List Now

• Join US Women and Cuba Collaboration and WILPF US Cuba and the Bolivarian Issues Committee

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RESOURCES:

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Workshops Overview, Speakers, Sponsors, Flyer

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Belly of the Beast Films and Cuba Resources (sign up for updates on Belly of the Beast website)

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Congressmembers Jayapal and Jackson Speak in Cuba/Belly of the Beast Interview

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“What We Saw in Cuba Shocked Us,” Jayapal and Jackson NYT OpEd, May 11, 2026

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US Blockade of Cuba Puts Special Burden on Women

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70th Session of Commission on the Status of Women Concludes Amid Tensions Introduced by US

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1200 Feminist Organizations and Allies Call on UN Members to Pay Dues that Support Gender Equality

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Global Health Partners Neonatal & Maternal Healthcare  Initiative to Combat Cuba’s Rising Infant Mortality Rate (Program Summary) 

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About Global Health Partners 

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Global Health Partners has worked for 40 years to support grassroots economic and social development in Latin America, while leading broad campaigns at home against  Washington’s reactionary policies in the region. We’ve focused our advocacy on ending the cruel, punitive U.S. embargo against Cuba, which has imposed a stark humanitarian crisis on the island. 

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To confront devastating shortages, GHP has delivered more than $280 million worth of lifesaving medicines and surgical supplies to Cuba over the past three decades. So far,  this year alone, we’ve provided more than $4 million in medical aid to Cuban hospitals.  GHP has led successful campaigns to donate more than six million syringes to support  Cuba’s Covid vaccination program; delivered 1,000 desperately needed pacemakers for patients with severe cardiac disease; and surgical sutures to enable doctors to perform surgeries, which are being postponed or cancelled due to the shortage of sutures. 

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Now, GHP is launching a vital initiative to strengthen Cuba’s damaged public health  system: We’re developing an innovative neonatal and maternal healthcare project,  described below, to bring down Cuba’s fast-rising infant mortality rate. 

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GHP’s Neonatal and Maternal Healthcare Initiative

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 Global Health Partners is working with Cuba’s Ministry of Health to alleviate one of the cruellest impacts of Washington’s economic war against Cuba: the country’s fast-rising infant mortality rate. While the U.S. embargo has a punitive effect on every aspect of daily life in Cuba today, the sanctions have exacted the harshest toll on the public health system. A devastating example is reflected in the country’s infant mortality rate. 

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Before Cuba’s 1959 revolution, the infant mortality rate was approximately 70 deaths per  1,000 live births. And this number was likely an undercount, as newborns in rural areas were dying without ever reaching a health facility, with their deaths never recorded. After the revolution, Cuba built a universal primary care system, and one of its proudest achievements was a low infant mortality rate – 4.8 deaths per 1,000 in 2012 – unique in the developing world. Cuba’s success even bested the record in some marginalized U.S. communities. 

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But now, Cuba’s infant mortality rate has nearly doubled to over 9 deaths per 1,000, and is rapidly escalating amid scarcity of lifesaving equipment such as incubators, neonatal ventilators, and cardiac monitors. The lack of medical equipment is compounded by food shortages, gaps in prenatal care, and the emigration of doctors and nurses spurred by the economic crisis. Malnutrition among pregnant women and the unavailability of crucial prenatal monitoring have resulted in a substantial increase in high-risk, very low birthweight, and anaemic newborns. 

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To help alleviate and reverse this tragic development, Global Health Partners has launched a Neonatal and Maternal Healthcare Initiative, a pilot project aimed at nationwide replication. Working in partnership with Cuba’s Ministry of Health, GHP’s program will initially focus on two Havana hospitals, Diez de Octubre Maternity Hospital and Ramón González Coro Maternity Hospital, which treat the most complex pregnancy and neonatal cases. The latter facility also provides specialized care to infants born to mothers with diabetes or heart disease from all 15 provinces. 

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As a result of the U.S. embargo, these hospitals, like their counterparts across the island,  do not have access to modern technologies, medicine, and equipment needed to save vulnerable newborns. U.S. sanctions prohibit the sale to Cuba of any technology containing 10 percent or more of U.S.-origin components. This restriction encompasses the vast majority of modern medical equipment produced globally, and non-U.S.  manufacturers that incorporate any qualifying U.S. components are also barred from selling to Cuba. 

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Dr. Niurka Moran Obregon, head of Neonatology at Ramón González Coro Hospital,  says that these extraterritorial sanctions make it “difficult, if not impossible,” to obtain new incubators and ventilators. “The blockade overwhelms us,” she adds. To confront this barrier, GHP has established procurement networks in the U.S. and abroad to source the necessary equipment. 

The two facilities also lack the means to provide pregnant women with preventative prenatal care for conditions such as foetal monitoring, hypertension, and haemorrhaging. The ongoing economic hardships also deny women the prenatal nutrition, vitamins, and regular exams needed to reverse the rising incidence of risky deliveries and premature births. 

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Our initiative aims to supply these hospitals with lifesaving equipment and to institute early, preventive interventions to ensure healthy mothers and babies. We will also target nearby local primary care clinics to provide specialized training and resources that have been diminished by the emigration of skilled medical personnel. Effective preventive measures will lessen the growing need for emergency efforts in hospitals to save newborn lives. 

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The Pilot Hospitals: Ramón González Coro and Diez de Octubre. The two hospitals selected for this pilot are not simply convenient choices – they are the institutions where intervention will have the greatest and most immediate impact on neonatal and maternal outcomes in Havana and beyond.

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Ramón González Coro Hospital 

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The Ramón González Coro Hospital is Cuba’s foremost high-risk obstetric referral center. It is the only hospital in Cuba designated to manage pregnancies complicated by diabetes or cardiac disease – conditions that carry the highest risk of maternal and neonatal mortality – drawing complex cases from all 15 provinces. With adequate equipment and medicines, this team’s clinical expertise is capable of achieving dramatically better outcomes than current conditions permit. 

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Diez de Octubre Maternal Hospital 

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The Diez de Octubre Maternal Hospital serves one of Havana’s most densely populated municipalities and is a principal site for obstetric and neonatal care in the capital. It plays a critical role in managing the full spectrum of maternal and newborn cases in a city where the infant mortality rate is increasing – and a city that has long served as a model for maternal care in Latin America. The hospital’s frontline position in the community makes it an ideal site for strengthening both continuity of primary-to-secondary care and neonatal intensive care capacity.

 

Why Limit the Pilot to Havana 

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Cuba’s ongoing fuel crisis, a direct result of the Trump fuel blockade, has severely disrupted logistics across the island. Frequent power blackouts, transport shortages, and supply chain instability make it extremely difficult to guarantee the consistent delivery,  maintenance, and monitoring of medical equipment in provincial settings. By concentrating the pilot in Havana, GHP can leverage its existing import and distribution infrastructure to ensure that resources reach patients reliably – and that the program will be operated under conditions rigorous enough to generate the outcome data needed to justify national scale-up. 

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Critical Equipment and Supplies 

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The Diez de Octubre Maternity Hospital and Ramón González Coro Maternity have  provided us with a list of their most urgent priorities for ensuring safe childbirth and  reducing infant mortality: 

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• Neonatal incubators. The current, very limited supply of incubators in Cuba’s neonatal intensive care units is aging and failing mechanically.

Global Health Partners Neonatal & Maternal Healthcare Initiative 3 

• Mechanical neonatal ventilators. This equipment is essential for infants in respiratory distress, the leading cause of death in premature newborns. These ventilators are now unavailable or non-functional in most Cuban maternity hospitals. 

• Neonatal CPAP systems. These machines provide non-invasive respiratory support that reduces the need for intubation and lowers the risk of infection. 

• Thermal blankets and radiant warmers. These prevent hypothermia in premature newborns, one of the most common and preventable causes of neonatal death. • Pulse oximeters and cardiorespiratory monitors. These are essential for the continuous monitoring of oxygen saturation and vital signs in at-risk newborns. • Phototherapy units (bili lights). This is treatment for neonatal jaundice, which is highly prevalent in preterm infants and is fatal if untreated. 

• Neonatal grade infusion pumps. Required for precise medication and nutrition delivery in newborns. 

• Obstetric ultrasound equipment. Critical for prenatal risk detection, including fetal growth, placenta previa, and pre-eclampsia. 

• Antibiotics (intravenous neonatal formulations). Sepsis, which is largely preventable with adequate resources, caused the deaths of multiple newborns in  Havana hospitals over the past two years. 

• Pulmonary surfactant. This lifesaving treatment for preterm infants in respiratory distress is largely unavailable in Cuba. 

• Nasogastric and suction tubes, endotracheal tubes. Basic supplies that have become scarce, impeding routine and emergency neonatal care. 

• Antihypertensive and obstetric medications. Necessary for management of pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, and obstetric haemorrhage, which are the leading causes of maternal mortality in Cuba. 

• Magnesium Sulfate. This World Health Organization-recommended treatment for eclampsia and foetal neuroprotection in preterm labor is in short supply across Cuban maternity hospitals. 

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Implementation 

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GHP estimates that this two-year pilot project will require ~$460,000 in funding. GHP  has raised more than $170,000, and will fundraise with committed U.S. and European partners to fully fund this lifesaving project (Trump’s new May 1 EO will make sourcing equipment more difficult and costly). We plan to launch our Neonatal and Maternal  Healthcare Initiative in July 2026.