BY Vanessa Bauza
HAVANA BUREAU

HAVANA · In the wake of international criticism over the health and treatment of 75 imprisoned dissidents, the Cuban government on Wednesday offered foreign reporters their first glimpse into medical services in Havana's prisons in almost two decades.

Cuba, which has not allowed the International Red Cross to visit prisons since 1988 and denied requests for a United Nations human rights envoy to visit the island, vehemently rejects reports that the dissidents and other inmates are mistreated, underfed and housed in unsanitary cells plagued by insects.

The monitored tours of the National Hospital for Prisoners and a medical ward within the Western Women's Prison came as Cuba prepares to defend its rights record before the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva this month.

The freshly painted National Hospital for Prisoners, situated between three barracks of the Combinado del Este prison, is the flagship of Cuba's prison hospitals and one of five such centers serving inmates across the island, officials said. Founded in 1977, it has 200 beds, although on Wednesday only 38 inmates were being treated for illnesses, hospital Director Dr. Aurelio González said.

The hospital is equipped with an intensive care unit, emergency room and three operating rooms, in which the most common surgeries involve repairing hernias and removing foreign objects such as wires or forks that are swallowed by some prisoners, according to Dr. Mariano Izquierdo, who oversees the surgical team.

Although two jailed dissidents, Orlando Fundora and Roberto de Miranda, had recently been treated in the hospital's intensive care unit, they were transferred out, officials said. Fundora was still at the hospital in another unit, and de Miranda was transferred to a medical ward at another prison, officials said.

Reporters did not have access Wednesday to any jailed dissidents or to inmates outside the medical centers.

Among the pilot programs highlighted by hospital officials is a recent two-year nursing degree offered to 16 inmates at Combinado del Este. .

Inmate Hosvanay Valle is in the nursing program. Like all the inmates available for interviews at the hospital, Valle, who has completed almost three years of his 12-year sentence for aggravated theft, complimented the prison.

"I never thought I would have this opportunity," said Valle, 28, who upon graduation from the program will work at the prison hospital until his release. "Sincerely, I had never been in prison, I had another image of it. I thought there was more violence. The food is pretty acceptable."

Joanne Mariner, deputy director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, said the lack of international access to Cuba's prisons is an anomaly in the region and makes it difficult to compare conditions there to those in other Latin American countries.

"The general rule is, even in situations of war and extreme tension, the Red Cross is allowed to visit," Mariner said. "If we were given the opportunity to visit, we would jump at it."

Dissident Elizardo Sánchez, who was imprisoned at Combinado del Este for three years and now leads the island's best-known human rights organization, urged the government to give international rights groups access to its prisons.

"The government, far from improving the situation in the prisons and diminishing social and political repression, tries to hide the truth behind these propaganda operations," Sanchez said.

Vanessa Bauza can be reached at vmbauza1@yahoo.com

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