So much for that "free health care" thingy

From al-Reuters via the Kiwis:

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has long prided himself on Cuba's doctors and free public health care system, but that system seems to have let him down after he fell ill in July, US-based doctors said on Wednesday.

Based on a report in Wednesday's edition of Spain's El Pais newspaper, the doctors - who have no first-hand knowledge of Castro's condition - said Castro had received questionable or even botched care at the hands of health experts on his communist-ruled island.

"It's not a good story. Too bad they didn't send him to Miami for surgery," said Dr Charles Gerson, a clinical professor of medicine in the gastroenterology division of New York's Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.

Ouch. I'm sure Castro would have been as welcome in Miami as Ted Kennedy at a Kopechne family reunion.