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26 DIE AT PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL
Posted by: Darrell Castle
January 20, 2010
Topic: Personal Injury
Associated Press writer, Andrea Rodriguez, reported that the Cuban government said 26 patients at Cuba's largest hospital for the mentally ill died this past week during a cold snap. How does this happen in a tropical country where the temperature rarely falls below 50 degrees Fahrenheit? The recent prolonged cold weather across the eastern part of the United States also drove the temperature to 38 degrees in Boyeros, the neighborhood where Havana's Psychiatric Hospital is located.
The Cuban Commission on Human Rights head, Elizardo Sanchez, stated that so many patients dying of hypothermia was "absurd in a tropical country" and claimed the deaths could have been prevented if the government had granted requests to tour Cuba's 2500 bed mental hospital.
It is understandable that a tropical, sun drenched country such as Cuba doesn't have central heat in hospitals, but blankets could possibly have prevented the deaths. How expensive and how much trouble could it be to hand out a few blankets? The various international aid groups would probably have provided them for free. Cuba provides free health care to its citizens but it is plagued by shortages. Patients are expected to bring their own sheets and towels and sometimes food during hospital stays. That could prove difficult for mentally ill people to do. The Cuban government blames the shortages on the U.S. trade embargo, although the embargo does not include medicine or medical supplies.
In the United States, we have a system of government regulations to enforce guidelines of health and safety against nursing homes and hospitals. American facilities are covered by insurance companies which have a financial interest in the regulations being followed appropriately because they know that trial attorneys will investigate and litigate cases of abuse and neglect. Thank the trial lawyers of America for a large part of the safety of American hospitals and nursing homes.
God bless America and its health system.
