By MEG JONES
mjones@journalsentinel.com

Many have escaped Cuba since the Communists began ruling there more than four decades ago, but Santiago L. Yllas devised a novel way to flee.
 
Suffering from dysentery in 1966, Yllas and a doctor friend swapped his X-rays with those of a patient dying of colon cancer and persuaded authorities to let him go to Spain to say goodbye to his family.

Yllas never returned to his homeland.

He eventually made his way to the United States and served patients as the only Spanish-speaking family physician in Racine for many years. Yllas, 67, died Wednesday of cancer at his home.

Yllas was a medical school student in his hometown of Havana when he was arrested, said his ex-wife, Beth.

"Because it was during the time of the revolution, he ended up getting taken to a political prisoner camp for a while," said Beth Yllas, who was married to him for 23 years. "He was taken out of his home during the middle of the night, blindfolded, taken somewhere out in the country."

He contracted dysentery in the prison camp and lost 40 pounds. While in a hospital in Havana, Santiago Yllas swapped the X-rays and gained his freedom.

"His own parents came on the freedom flight (from Cuba), but because he was young and educated, the Communists didn't want to let him leave Cuba," Beth Yllas said.

He finished medical school in Spain and went through neurosurgery training at the University of Madrid. In 1968, he immigrated to the U.S.

He lived in Miami for a short time before working as a physician in Tennessee and Kentucky, where he finished his residency as a family practitioner. In 1977, one year after he became an American citizen, he moved to Wisconsin, working in private practice in Racine for 18 years before selling his practice.

"He liked working with a variety of people. He liked working with geriatric patients, he liked working with babies," Beth Yllas said. "He was very community-oriented. I think of all the people he took care of over the years for free or for barter, for tamales."

Even after he was diagnosed with cancer, he continued to work as a physician at Lubsey Clinic in Milwaukee.

"He would go to chemo and then go to work for a few days," she said.

Santiago Yllas was a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and a member of the American Medical Association and Wisconsin Medical Society.

Survivors include children Alicia, Idarmis, Marta, Ana and Mary.

Memorial services will be at 7 p.m. Monday at Purath-Strand Funeral Home and Crematory, 3915 Douglas Ave., Racine. The family will receive visitors there from 2 to 7 p.m.