In the wake of widespread government protests last month, the Cuban government is now receiving unprecedented criticism from health care workers who say officials have disrupted the island's response to the epidemic.
Signs of Fidel Castro's health care program, doctors and nurses are often hailed as heroes in white coats by the island's media.
In recent years Cuban health care workers have also explored the key to hard money in the communist government, which sells its services to countries in need of doctors.
But as Cuba faces a shortage of medicines and oxygen and hospitals are full of growing cases of coronavirus, tensions between the government and health care workers - who need to work for the government - are over.
During a visit to August in the worst-hit province of Cienfuegos, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz blamed health workers' misconduct and "mistakes" for the deterioration of medical services.
Marrero acknowledged that residents were complaining about the lack of medication and said "they are less likely to complain about abuse, neglect or that [doctors] are not visiting. It's amazing!"
The comments sparked a fire among health workers who have been struggling to cope with the epidemic in Cuba, often while purchasing their personal protective equipment and explaining to Covid patients why hospitals have run out of basic medicines and beds.
The Cuban government blames the US ban on the health system's deterioration, but critics point out that similar US economic sanctions do not prevent the government from investing in a series of shiny new hotels.