29861: Haitianalysis (News) Arrested Suffer Unattended in Port-au-Prince General Hospital (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From:  haitianalysis-at-gmail-dot-com

Arrested Suffer Unattended in Port-au-Prince General
Hospital<http://haitianalysis.ath.cx/2007/1/17/arrested-suffer-unattended-in-port-au-prince-general-hospital>
January
17th, 2007
*By: Jeremy Dupin - www.haitianalysis.com *

Traditionally in Haiti, the poorest suffer the most in conflict. Human
rights violation are visible everywhere. In the General Hospital of
Port-au-Prince, the largest medical center in the country, workers have been
on strike for a month. According to the striking workers the Haitian
government owes them five months of salary and the tuition fees of their
children. They have asked for improved working conditions and for the
government to begin with the process of negotiation.

Only those who are paralyzed or too incapacitated to move remain in the
hospital. The emergency section is almost empty. When this reporter visited
the emergency section only two people were present. Both Fritzner Maitre and
Junior Jacques lay on beds with large locked chains attached to their feet.
Maitre, a taxi cab driver, is twenty years old, and Jacques is a young
teenager, age fifteen.

Maitre explained that he had been arrested in Mirbalais, after he got shot
in his leg on his motorcycle by the police. Since then they brought him to
the hospital for care but since his arrival the hospital workers have been
on strike. Without care his suffering has grown as the gun shot festers
inside his leg.

Joseph has several machete slashes in different places on his body and was
arrested in Cabaret after he was accused of trying to burglarize a family.
He laments that his family does not know his location. His only source of
sustenance has been food brought by a religious group for the sick and
incapacitated and Fritzner's family which has brought a few morsels of food.
Those arrested by Haitian authorities or wounded and placed in hospitals
face grueling circumstances. A November 2004 Miami University study found
massive abuse against those in jail and hospitals in Port-au-Prince.

Evel Fanfan, the head of the human right organization AUMODH, explains that
in general the lack of proper medical care and poor prison conditions is a
common situation of human rights abuses in Haiti. He observes, "This is not
the only case that we are facing, this is the result of phenomenal poverty
and of a justice system which is not functioning." Other Haitian human
rights groups, such as those within the recently formed coalition CONODDH,
have decried ongoing human rights violations.