The Liberty Papers

According to a new report from a Spanish newspaper, Fidel Castro’s current condition may be due to failures in Cuba’s vaunted nationalized medical industry:

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuban leader Fidel Castro chose to avoid a colostomy and opted for riskier intestinal surgery that led to serious complications, the Spanish newspaper El Pais said in its Wednesday edition.

The problem is that the procedure that they did in place of the colostomy didn’t go well, and has apparently caused serious internal infections.

U.S. doctors said Tuesday’s report in El Pais suggested Castro had received questionable or even botched care.

“It sounds like they tried to spare him the colostomy, which would have been the safer and more conservative approach,” said Dr. Meyer Solny, a gastrointestinal expert at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Now, of course, doctors make mistakes even in the United States, but there is some delicious irony in the idea that Fidel may be dying because of the incompetence created by his own system.

H/T: Classical Values