The Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital, officially the ''Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico "Hermanos Ameijeiras"'', is located in Barrio San Lazaro and is the premier hospital in

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

, its tower prominently visible from the

Malecón A jetty is a structure that projects from land out into water. A jetty may serve as a breakwater, as a walkway, or both; or, in pairs, as a means of constricting a channel. The term derives from the French word ', "thrown", signifying somet ...

between the historic center and the uptown

Vedado Vedado ( es, El Vedado, ) is a central business district and urban neighborhood in the city of Havana, Cuba. Bordered on the east by Calzada de Infanta and Central Havana, and on the west by the Alemendares River and Miramar / Playa distric ...

neighborhood. It was opened in 1982. Hermanos Ameijeiras

The hospital is located at San Lázaro and Belascoaín streets in

Centro Habana Centro Habana is one of the 15 municipalities or boroughs (''municipio''s in Spanish) in the city of Havana, Cuba. There are many retail spaces (such as ''Plaza de Carlos III'' commercial center, office buildings, hotels, bars and clubs (such as th ...

. It has a footprint of , and of floor space. The monumental lobby measures by with a ceiling and murals by Romanian-Cuban artist Sandú Darié.Juan de las Cuevas Toraya, ''500 años de contrucciones en Cuba'', p. 345. Havana, 2001, Servicios Gráficos y Editoriales, S.L.
/ref>

History

Origin and name

The site of the hospital (originally the Bank) was occupied from 1852 until the 1950s by

La Casa de Beneficencia y Maternidad de La Habana La Casa de Beneficencia y Maternidad de La Habana, ( es, The House of Charity and Maternity of Havana, lead=yes) was for 270 years Havana's repository of Havana's unwanted children. The House of Charity started during a time when Cuba was experie ...

. At the time of the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

in 1959, the building was only partially completed - it was to be the Banco Nacional de Cuba and some of its dependencies such as the Stock Exchange. The decision was eventually made to complete the construction and turn it into a hospital, which was finally opened in 1982, 23 years later. The hospital was named after the Ameijeiras Brothers, which the Cuban state considers to be heroes of the Revolution.

Efigenio Ameijeiras Efigenio Ameijeiras Delgado (September 21, 1931 – February 10, 2020) was a Cuban military commander affiliated with Fidel Castro from the 1950s. Son of Manuel Ameijeiras Fontelo, a native of Pontevedra (Spain) and the Cuban María de las Angusti ...

was one of them.

Corruption incident

In 1999 the Miami Herald reported that a government crackdown on

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

had extended to Hermanos Ameijeiras, uncovering that three top officials there had mishandled hard-currency income and as a result were fired or forced to resign.

2007 film

In the 2007 film ''

Sicko ''Sicko'' is a 2007 American political documentary film by filmmaker Michael Moore. Investigating health care in the United States, it focuses on the country's health insurance and the pharmaceutical industry. The film compares the for-profit no ...

'' by Michael Moore, Moore took a group of Americans to Cuba to show that the quality of care that they would receive there, this to prove a point that a socialized medical system could provide the patients better care than they would receive in the U.S., where those patients would not have money or insurance to pay for good care in the private U.S. health care system. Moore insisted in the movie as well as in an interview with

John Stossel John Frank Stossel (born March 6, 1947) is an American libertarian television presenter, author, consumer journalist, and pundit. He is known for his career as a host on ABC News, Fox Business Network, and Reason TV. Stossel's style combines r ...

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

that the treatment provided was just like that given to any Cuban; but Stossel's research led him to conclude that the hospital provided service only for the Cuban elite and that this care was not available to the average Cuban."Healthy in Cuba, sick in America?", ABC News, 2007-09-07
/ref> In 2010, dissident

Orlando Zapata Orlando Zapata Tamayo (May 15, 1967 – February 23, 2010) was a Cuban political activist and a political prisoner who died after hunger striking for more than 80 days. His death received international attention, and was viewed as a signifi ...

died at the hospital after a hunger strike.

References

External links

CASTRO INAUGURATES CENTRO HABANA HOSPITAL
{{Authority control Hospital buildings completed in 1982 Hospitals established in 1982 Hospitals in Cuba Buildings and structures in Havana 1982 establishments in Cuba 20th-century architecture in Cuba