The young Álvaro Conrado, 15, did not tell his parents that he would participate in the protests against Daniel Ortega’s government in Nicaragua. On April 20th he took to the streets, like hundreds of other students.
After midday, Conrad was news throughout the country: he had received a bullet in the neck. When the young man arrived at the Cruz Azul Hospital to be treated, the health personnel closed the door and did not assist him.
If it had been taken care of, it would not have been fatal,”
says Nicaraguan doctor Ricardo Pineda, who on Monday exposed the crisis experienced by the doctors’ union in Nicaragua, where four months of protests have resulted in more 300 dead.
This case was the alarm for doctors and medical students of Nicaragua, who learned that the persecution was also going to be against their union. Today, they record the deaths of four doctors -one of Brazilian nationality- and four medical students. Dozens of them have been threatened, especially in the communities of Estelí and Matagalpa.
In addition, they denounce that they are working in churches, with the basic tools, with fear of being persecuted and kidnapped for mitigating the pain and preventing the wounded from bleeding.
The patients came in, took the serums and took them out to the street. In some places they were allowed in and they called the para-police (…) They seek to generate a fear that if one approaches a health unit of the State, one will be imprisoned. In more serious places like Estelí, hospitals serve as a base for the para-police,”
told Pineda.
According to El Nuevo Diario, local media, until August 7th, the Nicaraguan Medical Association (AMN) registered the dismissal of 200 doctors throughout the country, allegedly for political reasons.
The health crisis is severe (…) the only thing that we have at hand is our stethoscope and the will to serve the population,”
added the doctor.
Pineda participated in a forum organized by the Latin-Iberoamerican Medical Confederation (Confemel) to talk about the criminalization of medicine and the challenges of these professionals in the region.
Not even in the great world wars has this happened. Persecution of doctors, persecution and destruction of ambulances and health personnel,”
said Andres Castillo, president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica.
While it is true that the most obvious situation is that of Nicaragua, due to the internal crisis experienced, Castillo indicated that they have registered cases of persecution in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Honduras.