Hospital Built by President Grau San Martín in Pinar del Río Now a Haunted Ruin

In the late nineties, there were rumors that it would be converted into a health tourism facility. However, after decades of total abandonment, the Pilar San Martín Antituberculosis Sanatorium remains a ghostly ruin in the middle of nowhere. Located in Guanito, at kilometer 18 of the road leading to Luis Lazo in Pinar del Río, the sanatorium for tuberculosis patients ordered by President Ramón Grau San Martín is now an architectural skeleton where survivors of cyclones and abandoned families lacking any social protection reside.

Reporters from the YouTube channel Mario Sergio TV went there to show the state of an infrastructure that cost around 400,000 pesos in 1948 (the year of its inauguration), which would be equivalent to about $5,220,580 USD today. Although the hospital faced water supply issues from its opening, time and neglect following the so-called “revolution” transformed a pioneering institution into a dilapidated structure with irreversible deterioration, inhabited by victims of the social exclusion perpetuated by the communist regime.

Among Guanito's residents, there are stories of ghosts wandering the area, but the reality is that families with children, some with developmental problems, live there, all marked by extreme poverty and the lack of a decent roof over their heads. A doctor and native of Pinar del Río, Grau San Martín commissioned the construction of the Pilar San Martín Antituberculosis Sanatorium (named after the president's mother), with a capacity of 69 beds. Equipped with all the advancements of its time, the hospital expanded over the years to accommodate up to 150 beds.

The isolation of the building was deemed necessary since tuberculosis, a highly infectious disease, was considered very dangerous when the institution was established. After the decline of tuberculosis in Cuba and worldwide, health authorities decided to convert the hospital into a psychiatric hospital around 1970. However, with the advent of the so-called “Special Period” in the 90s, patients were relocated to Pinar del Río, and the Guanito hospital was abandoned.

Nearly three decades ago, the MINSAP (Ministry of Public Health) decided to abandon the site entirely, leaving behind a vandalized and ghostly shell that popular imagination has filled with spirits. The abandoned building has since served as a refuge for cyclone victims and vulnerable families who have settled on its ground floor. Rumors that the skeleton would be converted into a health tourism facility were debunked by the authorities' apathy, who preferred to abandon a unique building that witnessed the progress of Republican Cuba.

The MINSAP took away all medical and service materials, including kitchen equipment, elevators, air conditioners, and beds, and periodically sent architects to take measurements and draft plans with the idea of recovering a health facility. Today, the ruins are inhabited by those excluded by a regime determined to erase and denigrate the past of a vibrant and prosperous society, intending to be remembered as the nation's saviors.

Described by revolutionary historiography as “a diamond in the hands of a beggar,” the Pilar San Martín Antituberculosis Sanatorium exemplified the social work of National Reformism in Cuba, a political movement active from 1944 to 1952, with the rise of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (Authenticos) and the Cuban People's Party (Orthodoxos) from the opposition. Today, it stands as a ruin embedded in the widespread decay instilled by the so-called “revolution” and its violent imposition of communism, the sole permitted ideology, responsible for the extinction of the vigorous civil society of the Republic.