Posted on 01/16/2010 4:51:27 AM PST by Cheap_Hessian
HAVANA -- Twenty-six patients at Cuba's largest hospital for the mentally ill died this week during a cold snap, the government said Friday.
Human rights leaders cited negligence and a lack of resources as factors in the deaths, and the Health Ministry launched an investigation that it said could lead to criminal proceedings.
A Health Ministry communique read on state television blamed "prolonged low temperatures that fell to 38 degrees Fahrenheit (4 Celsius) in Boyeros," the neighborhood where Havana's Psychiatric Hospital is located.
It said most of the deaths were from natural causes such as old age, respiratory infections and complications from chronic diseases including cancer and cardiovascular problems.
The statement came in response to reports from the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights that at least 24 mental patients died of hypothermia this week, and that the hospital did not do enough to protect them from the cold because of problems such as faulty windows.
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Thoughts of “excellent” socialist health care and global warming come to mind.
Mentally ill = dissidents
Unbelievable.
Three years in the Navy in Puerto Rico and I never saw a temperature below 68 degrees day or night, winter or summer.
Paging Michael Moore. Drop the chalupa and splain us how people died in a Cuban hospital due to not enough resources. Did some bureaucrat decide they couldn’t afford windows and blankets? Death panel?
ping
Ping!
Paging Michael Moore.
You’re so right, they died from a deadly combination of socialized health care and global warming.
You’re so right, they died from a deadly combination of socialized health care and global warming.
Spot on my friend !
Human rights leaders cited negligence and a lack of resources as factors in the deaths
resources = windows
Well, that’s 26 more poor souls than have died from global warming
Has Human Rights Watch ever investigated Cuban mental hospitals? Too busy slamming George Bush for
1) Iraqi sanctions killing a million children
2) Iraq civilian war deaths
3) being George Bush
......Well, that’s 26 more poor souls than have died from global warming......
Au contraire, mi Amigo ( a little frog mex lingo) hundreds of old people deserted in Paris one recent August from excessive heat of Global Warming
WOW thats truly sad.
summer heat, even occasional extreme, is not “global warming”
Many of those souls died because
a) they didn’t have air conditioning or access to it via social agences (which kick in here with “cooling centers” to help the homeless and homebound when inner cities swelter)
b) their families, social workers, and caretakers left them alone in small apartments to cope because it was vacation time in France and NOTHING stops a Frenchman from taking his govt-guaranteed vacation, C’est la Vie
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