Healthcare in Cuba

Havana: Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko, holds up Cuba as a model. Whether it is a consultation, dentures or open heart surgery, citizens are entitled to free treatment. As a result the impoverished island boasts better health indicators than its exponentially richer neighbour 90 miles across the Florida straits Photograph: Enrique de la Osa/EPA

Havana: Senior citizens check their pulses at an outdoor health club called the '120-year-old Club', which emphasises diet and exercise as central to a healthy old age. Cuba's healthcare system is geared towards averting illnesses and treating them before they become advanced and costly Photograph: RODRIGO ARANGUA/AFP

Havana: A boy receives a medical check-up at his local clinic. Easy, free access to GPs is a bedrock of healthcare. There are estimated to be 14,000 family doctors for the 11.2m population, a ratio of one GP per 785 people. Include all the other doctors in hospitals and colleges and the ratio falls to 175 Photograph: David Turnley/Corbis

A Cuban adult's monthly food ration: 3.8kg of rice, 283g of dried beans, 2.3kg of sugar, 113g ounces of coffee, about two cups of cooking oil, 10 eggs, a bag of salt, a bar of soap, a tube of toothpaste, 226g of dried pasta, 226g of sweetened cocoa, 1.8kg of potatoes, 30 bread rolls and a bottle of dishwashing liquid. Missing are crackers. 283g of fish, 226g of chicken and a little less than 500g inexpensive meat products Photograph: Javier Galeano/AP

Havana: Nurses care for newborns in the hospital maternity ward. Cuba's infant mortality rates are lower than those in the United States Photograph: Robert Wallis/Corbis

Havana: Lourdes Lozano sells medicine to Carlos Otero in the pharmacy where she works. Often pharmacies lack basics such as aspirin but in recent months they have been reasonably stocked Photograph: Jorge Rey/Getty

Havana: Doctor Zorima Nico, 42, applies Chinese heat treatment to a patient's back at a residential home for the elderly. Cuba actively promotes Chinese and other alternative treatments alongside well as western medicine Photograph: ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP

Havana: Cuban and foreign students at the Latin American School of Medical Sciences. Students study on campus for the first two years, and then go to another of Cuba's 22 medical schools connected to hospitals and clinics Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty

Havana: Doctors with backpacks loaded with medicines meet in the Karl Marx theatre, ready to be dispatched to assist survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Cuba's offer to send physicians to the US to help in the relief went unanswered by Washington Photograph: Jorge Rey/AP

Havana: A patient's eyes are examined at the Pando Ferrer ophtalmological hospital ahead of an free operation, part of Operation Miracle, a Cuban program providing free operations for poor people from Latin America and the Caribbean Photograph: Juan Barreto/AFP

Havana, September 2006: Doctors operate on a group of patients at the Cuban Ophthalmology Institute. Since 2004 thousands of people with eye disorders have received surgery as part of Operation Miracle, a Cuban program providing free operations for poor people from Latin America and the Caribbean. Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP

Caracas, Venezuela: Doctors operate on a group of patients at the Cuban ophthalmology institute. Since 2004 thousands of people with eye disorders have received surgery as part of Operation Miracle Photograph: Andrew Alvarez/AFP

Havana: A concert band perfrom at a psychiatric hospital Photograph: Tim Page/Corbis

Santiago de Cuba: Workers cut grass verges in an attempt to control the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which spreads hemorrhagic dengue fever Photograph: Adalberto Roque/AFP

Havana: Health ministry officials fumigate houses against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito Photograph: Rodrigo ARANGUA/AFP

Havana: A new hairdressers participates in a programme that combines beauty treatments with an Aids awareness campaign Photograph: STR/EPA