Sunday, March 15, 1998; Page C06

If The Post is going to report on the state of Cuban medicine under Fidel Castro's regime ["The Hemorrhaging of Cuba's Health Care," news story, Feb. 23], it is incorrect not to mention that:

The sale of American medicine, medical supplies and medical equipment is allowed under current law.

Nothing in our policy prevents Castro from obtaining medicine from any nation in the world.

In the past five years Americans have donated more than $230 million in medicine and medical supplies to Cuban nongovernmental groups -- making the United States the largest private humanitarian donor to Cuba in the world.

Last year Americans donated more medicine to Cuba than Cuba purchased on the open market.

Fidel Castro's special hospitals for the Communist Party elite and foreign tourists paying in dollars are not experiencing any shortages.

Fidel Castro recently announced the gift of a ton of medicine -- intended for the Cuban people -- to Peru.

The issue of Cuba's medical needs is being debated hotly, and The Post owes its readers the full story. I'm concerned about the Cuban people suffering due to Fidel Castro's decades of rationing and economic failure, and I am concerned about political prisoners wasting away in prison because they are denied medical treatment -- including since the 1980s visits by the Red Cross -- as an official form of punishment. The Post's story was unbalanced.

LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

U.S. Representative (R-Fla.)

Washington