The Spanish company Telstar, part of the Syntegon group and based in Terrassa, in the province of Barcelona, ​​refused to sell a part to the Frank País orthopedic scientific complex in Havana, amid an unprecedented crisis due to the blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba.

On the Caribbean island, health is not a commodity: it is a sworn right

In Cuba, health is not a commodity : it is a sworn right. Article 72 of the Constitution of the Republic , approved by popular referendum in 2019, states that public health is a right of all people, and it is the responsibility of the State to guarantee access, free provision , and quality of care, protection, and recovery services.

It is the supreme principle of a system recognized throughout much of the world, one that has inspired other nations to dream of the same, that has brought doctors and medicine to corners of the world where no state had ever reached before . Cuba not only became a healthcare leader in its region: it exported health like someone distributing hope. And perhaps there, precisely there, lies its most unforgivable sin : having been, for more than sixty years, living proof that another healthcare system was indeed possible .

That is the system that today, in 2026, cannot afford to buy a simple rubber gasket to repair a broken freeze dryer.

It’s not an embargo, it’s an extraterritorial blockade

The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 does not limit itself to regulating trade between Cuba and the United States: it prohibits companies from third countries from selling goods to Cuba whose technology contains more than 10% US components, and fines banks and companies of any nationality that facilitate transactions with the island.

The European Union has a legal tool that, in theory, obliges its members to ignore the US blockade and to sanction companies that do comply; in practice, due to fear, this law is rarely respected.

That the target was never solely the Cuban state is documented by the State Department itself: a memorandum declassified in 1991, signed on April 6, 1960, by Assistant Secretary Lester D. Mallory, proposed weakening the Cuban economy to provoke “hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of the government.” According to the report that Cuba submits annually to the UN , between March 2025 and February 2026, the blockade caused losses of just over $367 million in healthcare alone.

The case: a rubber gasket and almost a month of mail

It all began on August 26th with a simple email. Alejandro Pedregal , a professor and researcher at Aalto University in Finland, wanted to help Cuba and wrote to Telstar (part of the Syntegon group) in Terrassa, Spain. He inquired about the price and availability of the LyoBeta freeze dryer , specifying that it would be for a Cuban hospital . He also asked if the company shipped to the island and, if so, at what cost. If shipping wasn’t possible, he asked the machine’s weight and dimensions, so he could find another way to get it to them.

On August 31, sales responded with a questionnaire to better understand the needs. Pedregal forwarded it to the hospital—who, after all, knew the machine inside and out—and returned it completed on September 9. The response arrived on the 15th: a catalog and a model that “might be of interest.” But there was a misunderstanding. What the hospital needed wasn’t a new piece of equipment, but the connection piece used for sealing (the gasket that creates a hermetic seal). Pedregal clarified this that same day, and within minutes, sales forwarded it to the spare parts department.

That’s where another round begins. On September 16, Repuestos sends him a technical questionnaire and, simultaneously, another form: company name, tax ID number, registered address, delivery address, model, and serial number. There are two conditions: prepayment and a minimum order of 150 euros.

On September 24, the sales department wrote to ask if there were any updates on the technical form. Pedregal apologized for the delay, explained that the hospital only needed the rubber part for the closure, attached a photo, and asked if any other information was missing to move forward.

The response arrived that same day from the spare parts department: Based on the information provided in the attached document and the verification performed using the serial number, we understand that the equipment is installed in Cuba. If this information is correct, we regret that we cannot issue a commercial offer or supply spare parts or services for this equipment, as our company is not authorized to conduct business with Cuba , in accordance with current regulations and corporate policies. If it is indeed in Cuba, we will not be able to proceed with this request.

Pedregal persists with one last attempt: to buy the piece for personal use , without specifying its final destination. The answer is the same . It’s not possible, because its final use would still be as equipment in Cuba.

Almost a month of questionnaires, catalogs and forms to end up unable to sell —not even to a private individual residing in the European Union— a rubber gasket whose real cost is, in all likelihood, a fraction of the minimum order of 150 euros that the company itself demanded.

What is left undone

The equipment is a LyoBeta freeze dryer (Azbil Telstar Technologies, 2015), installed in the tissue bank of the Frank País International Orthopedic Scientific Complex, the largest orthopedic hospital in Cuba , which Fidel Castro commissioned Dr. Rodrigo Álvarez Cambras to build in 1967.

One of Cuba’s great “sins” was developing a universal and free healthcare system capable of exporting doctors, as it demonstrates that it is indeed possible to have a healthcare system that does not respond to the interests of big capital.

There, bone allograft is freeze-dried—donated bone that, after the process, can be stored sterile for years and used in reconstructive surgery to avoid amputations in patients with bone tumors or severe trauma—and pig skin, used as a temporary biological dressing in burn victims.

The sealing gasket seals the vacuum chamber: without it, the freeze-drying cycle cannot be completed, and neither process is possible. According to the technical specifications the hospital prepared to find a replacement, approximately 15 units of bone allograft and 45 units of porcine skin are processed per batch, in runs that are repeated, under normal conditions, twice a month: dozens of grafts per month, at a national referral hospital, depend on that machine .

The law that should have prevented it

Since 1996, the European Union has had a legal tool designed precisely for these cases: Regulation (EC) No. 2271/96. Article 5 prohibits any EU company or citizen from complying , directly or through an intermediary, with the requirements arising from the extraterritorial laws listed in its annex, and that annex explicitly names both the Helms-Burton Act and the US Cuban Assets Control Regulation (31 CFR Part 515).

In other words, European regulations require Telstar to ignore the US ban unless it receives express authorization from the European Commission to comply partially, which is only granted when non-compliance would cause serious harm to the company. The regulation even requires each member state to impose “effective, proportionate, and dissuasive” sanctions on companies that do comply with these foreign laws.

If you are interested in reading the messages between the researcher and the sales team, you can check the link of the OG article.