SPEECH BY FOREIGN MINISTER BRUNO RODRÍGUEZ PARRILLA AT THE UNITED NATIONSGENERAL ASSEMBLY UNDER THE ITEM "NECESSITY OF ENDING THE ECONOMIC, COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL EMBARGO IMPOSED BY THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AGAINST CUBA".
(NEW YORK, OCTOBER 28, 2009)
Mr. President,
Permanent Representatives and Delegates,
Alexis García Iribar was born in Cuba, in the province of Guantánamo. He suffered from a congenital cardiopathy known as persistent arterial duct. At the age of 6 and after successive deferrals and hemodynamic complications, he had to be submitted to an open-heart surgery on March 9, 2009, because the government of the United States prevents the US companies NUMED, AGA and Boston Scientific from selling to Cuba the ‘amplatzer’ and ‘embolization coil’ devices required to perform a catheterization that will spare children from this type of surgery. I could mention another 12 cases of children between the ages of 5 months and 13 years who have had to undergo a similar procedure in the course of the last one and a half years –two of them underwent surgery after last January 20.