Cuba opened a trial on Monday against the authorities of a psychiatric hospital where 26 patients died of cold a year ago in a scandal that revealed cracks in the tropical island's famous free health system, according to Reuters. The trial comes at a time when Cuba is cautiously opening its economy to small private enterprise and laying off about 500,000 public workers, including some employees of the Health Ministry, in a bid to improve the performance of state services, reduce subsidies and raise its tax take. Relatives of the accused, including the hospital director and other doctors, attended a spoken presentation in a Havana court along with relatives of the victims. "The authorities created an investigative commission and the main people responsible will appear in court," leading government newspaper Granma announced on Monday. "Once the judicial process has concluded the results will be made public," the paper said. With a very high ratio of doctors to patients and health indicators to rival the wealthy West, Cuba is proud of the universal free healthcare Fidel Castro's communist government established after a 1959 revolution. But an economic crisis that forced Cuba to stop paying some foreign debts and restructure other loans has exacerbated shortages of medical supplies in the system. The government, now headed by Fidel's brother, Raul Castro, points to the decades-long U.S. trade embargo as a major factor in country's economic problems. The deaths during a cold snap were first brought to light by a human rights group and later confirmed by the government. The non-governmental Cuban Human Rights Commission said the hospital lacked glass in the windows, doors and blankets when temperatures dropped to 3.6 Celsius (38 degrees Fahrenheit) on the usually balmy Caribbean island last January. The defendants themselves were not present at the first hearing, but family members of director Wilfredo Castillo and other hospital authorities turned up at the courthouse, in a peaceful residential neighborhood of central Havana. It was not immediately clear what the defendants had been accused of. "We know nothing. Only that that we were called to the hearing. We have faith that everything will turn out well," the sister of one of the victims told reporters, while security agents looked on from the gardens of the courthouse. The rights commission said the move against the hospital authorities did not go far enough up the chain of command. "It seems that the people who are really responsible will not be tried. We were hoping to see the health minister of that time take the blame for what happened," spokesman Elizardo Sanchez told reporters at the court gates. Former Health Minister Jose Ramon Balaguer, who fought alongside the Castro brothers to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista, left the post last year but remains a senior Communist Party member.
