In central Havana, Martha Ortega has been queueing for mince. She has both osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis causing her foot to drag, but she remains stylish, a checked shirt and denim handbag giving her the air of an 80-year-old cowgirl.
Until five years ago, Ortega was a receptionist in a local office of the Communist party of Cuba. Her pension is 1,575 pesos a month, but in the last three years, inflation has reduced its value to less than $5. “I try to spread it between food, medicines, whatever I can,” she says.
She is one of many old people in Cuba who has found herself all but destitute as the communist state, struggling with a profound economic crisis, pivots towards private enterprise. Ortega lives with her daughter, who is deaf and mute. They are alone. There is no other family to help.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this for Cuba’s revolutionary generation. In return for a selfless commitment to society they were promised subsidised food and cradle-to-grave healthcare. “Man [will] begin to free his mind from the annoying requirement of satisfying his animal needs through work,” vowed Che Guevara.
Yet, as private shops pop up across the Caribbean island and the bodegas that provide state-subsidised rations grow emptier, many older people are shocked at how quickly they have been abandoned by the revolution to which they dedicated themselves, just at the moment they are at their most vulnerable.
“We lived with a dream, with a devotion,” says Ortega. “And then everything was gone.”
The old are a burgeoning part of Cuban society. A triumph of the 1959 revolution was increasing the population’s life expectancy into the high 70s, matching both the US and the UK. Now the over-60s make up 22.6% of the population, of which 221,000 live alone, mostly women.
These trends have recently been supercharged by an exodus of the young. As the economy contracts, Cubans have joined the caravans from Latin America travelling to the US border, or found ways to move to Europe. Estimates vary but everyone agrees the population of the island has dropped well below the 11 million recorded in a 2012 census. A report from an independent demographer last week put it as low as 8.62 million.
“One of the terrible things for my colleagues is that their children are outside Cuba,” says 81-year-old Carlos Alzugaray, a former ambassador. “And now they are financially dependent on them, after so much sacrifice.”
Alzugaray, a Communist party member, is so shocked by the situation he says that “if tomorrow, some retired people got together and said, ‘let’s put on a demonstration in front of the ministry of labour and social security’, I’d go.”
That’s a startling statement in a country where demonstrations are rare – and almost never tolerated. “I have had two professions in my life,” Alzugaray says. “Both of service to the government of the Cuban Revolution. One was a 35-year stint at the foreign affairs ministry. The other was 15 years as a university professor. And I am getting 2,330 pesos [$6.50] a month.”
What surprises Alzugaray is that the government doesn’t respond. “There is no sense that they care about this problem,” he says. “Or that they are going to do something about it. They do what they do with every problem: they ignore it.”
The collapse of Cuba’s economy can be traced to the United States’ six-decade embargo, the communist state’s moribund central planning and a failure to recover from the pandemic. For a while it looked like the government couldn’t afford to import food, and so, in 2021, small and medium-sized private businesses (Mipymes) were authorised, including shops.
These stores have proved a boon to the Cubans who receive money from relatives abroad, but that is far from everyone. And when even an ambassadorial monthly pension won’t cover a tray of eggs (cost: 2,500 pesos) it’s become commonplace to see older people gazing at basics such as cooking oil they can’t afford.
The government has blamed “speculation” by the Mipymes, and last week moved to cap prices on basics such as chopped chicken and cooking oil. But even these foods – if the private shops continue to sell them – are out of the reach of pensioners (cooking oil is capped at 950 pesos).
Dr Alberto Fernández Seco is head of the department of older adults, social care and mental health at the ministry of public health. He argues that Cuba, with its “high level of education, balanced diet, sports and access to culture”, remains better placed to deal with “a global problem” of ageing than other countries.
He runs through the historic efforts Cuba has put into caring for its elderly: there are 304 Casas de Abuelos – drop-in centres – where the elderly can meet, receive meals and medical advice. And 158 care homes offering beds for the most needy. He waves aside reports that fewer people are visiting the Casas de Abuelos as prices rise, and that care home beds are disappearing, claiming the opposite is true.
“We’re starting to develop policies to share this responsibility with the private sector,” he says. These are private companies that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable. TaTamania, for example, offers “personalised care” for older people using “health sector professionals” from six offices across Cuba, with fees starting at around $150 a month but rising fast depending on needs.
The money comes predominantly from relatives abroad. The government’s plan is to allow these companies to expand beyond home care to care homes, with a 10th of the fees spent on the needs of those without relatives. “Sharing responsibility with the private sector does not contradict the achievements of the revolution,” says Fernández Seco.
Elaine Acosta, a sociologist and founder of Cuido 60 which studies the conditions of Cuba’s elderly from Florida International University, says expatriate families are aware that 10% of their fees are being redistributed, but the cash generated is too little to solve the issue. “A greater problem is that civil society organisations, which could help are not able to receive money from foundations or others from abroad,” she says.
Fernández Seco says the government is meanwhile expanding the rights of the elderly, including the right not to retire. “If you have the right mental and physical fitness,” he says, “you can keep working, receiving your pension and your salary.”
It may not be what was promised, but he adds that Cubans should remember how lucky they are compared with people from countries with the problems of organ theft, human trafficking and drugs. “We sometimes lack the ability to appreciate what we have,” he says.
Pushing a wheelchair up San Lázaro street, Elvio Agramonte de los Reyes is a little stooped, but carries himself like the Camagüey man he is, raised in the most courtly of the Cuban provinces. The chair contains a basket of mangoes and coriander which he is selling to passersby.
“The government gives me 1,100 pesos,” the 85-year-old says. “Between that and what I look for on the street, that’s what I’m living with. I have an advantage. I don’t smoke, or drink coffee or rum. I did drink a lot of rum but I got one of those cerebral ischaemias, and they told me: ‘Don’t touch it any more.’”
He, like Martha Ortega, has only a disabled daughter for family. “She has a mental condition from birth. She does not work and they give her a pension of 2,000 pesos.”
As a young man he heard Che Guevara’s call. “Volunteer work – Che invented it. I participated in everything. I planted, cleaned and cut cane. In some ways it was worth it – they built many schools, they built hospitals, with free medical care – but it’s going backwards now, like the tail of a cow.
“For those who are old now and have no family …” He pauses for a moment and a woman who has stopped to buy coriander fills in the gap, saying: “They are dying of hunger.”
