The Cuban Medical System

I don't know who Rob Miller is but he does seems to have a strange idea or two about Cuba:

Yet he fails to mention the 46-year-old United States blockade of the island, against which Cuba's achievements in health must be put into context and are even more impressive for doing so.

Certainly, the blockade has been harmful. It's meant that hey've had to sell their nickel to the Candians, for example.

It is a direct consequence of this blockade that hospitals lack vitamins, "pharmacies lack basics such as aspirin"...

No, I don't see it personally. For one thing the blockade does not cover medical supplies: for another, the US blockade does not stop other people in other countries from supplying Cuba with medical goods. I'd say that lack of such basics is due to one of two things: either dire poverty or those who have the money having other spending priorities.

During her recent tour of the UK, Dr Aleida Guevara, daughter of Che, and a practising paediatrician in Cuba, used every opportunity to collect supplies of life-saving cancer drugs, which the blockade prevented her from importing, and which resulted in the deaths of youngsters in her care.

As above, there's no blockade of life-saving cancer drugs, not from the US and not from the other 191 members of the UN. There might be no money, but that's another matter.

The American blockade is, I'm certain, one of the most insanely stupid of that country's foreign policies (and, yes, I know it's driven more by domestic concerns over voting intentions in Florida than anything else) and I'm sure that, at the margin, it has damaged Cuba's economy over the decades. But no, it isn't the cause of the poverty there and it's certainly not the cause of the shortage of basic medicines: for, as above, the blockade doesn't cover medical items and there's a whole host of other places that make them even if it did.