Cubans turn to free community pharmacies as medicines grow scarce

HAVANA (AP) — Every Thursday and Sunday at noon, dozens of people gather outside an apartment building in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood. Laura Mendoza comes downstairs, checks their names against a list and hands out medicine they requested through WhatsApp. Antihistamines, diuretics, eye drops and antibiotics are among the drugs she distributes.

Projects like Mendoza’s, called “Medicine Is Not for Sale,” have become a lifeline for Cubans struggling to find increasingly scarce medications as the country’s economic crisis deepens, compounded by U.S. energy and financial restrictions imposed since January. Online sellers, street vendors and WhatsApp and Telegram groups have also stepped in to fill gaps left by state pharmacies, which for decades were the main source of subsidized medicines.

The shortages have become so severe that Cuban authorities issued regulations in July allowing private pharmacies to operate — a historic change to the country’s state-run health system and part of broader economic reforms. Until those pharmacies open, projects like Mendoza’s provide a lifeline. “We have five WhatsApp groups in Havana and recently added one in Guanabo,” said Mendoza, who estimates that about 100 similar community projects operate in Havana.

Working with the Catholic charity Caritas, her initiative receives more than 13 kilograms (29 pounds) of medicine each week from humanitarian groups in Canada and the United States, travelers carrying donations and local residents. “People don’t just rely on this main pharmacy. They help each other,” Mendoza said, standing beside shelves of medicine in her apartment.

Volunteers sometimes deliver medicine to patients who cannot collect it themselves. But drugs requiring refrigeration, including some diabetes medications, and cancer treatments are particularly difficult to obtain. Patients also seek gauze, syringes and anesthetics for use in poorly supplied hospitals.

Shipping companies fear US penalties for calling at Cuban ports “Six or seven years ago, it was relatively easy to find medicines at state pharmacies,” said Cristina Díaz, a 27-year-old physics teacher who came to Mendoza’s project seeking clonazepam for a relative. As shortages worsened, “medicines became much harder to find,” she said. Cuba’s Health Ministry lists 603 medicines in its basic drug program, but only slightly more than one-…