In many places around the world, hospitals often turn into prisons. First, they heal the sick. Then — when patients cannot pay their bills — hospitals hold them hostage, sometimes for years.
The Associated Press has investigated these little-known detentions, finding imprisonments in hospitals in at least 30 other countries, including Nigeria and Congo, China and Thailand, Lithuania and Bulgaria, and others in Latin America and the Middle East. The two-part series will run Thursday and Friday.
The stories:
HOSPITAL HOSTAGES
NAIROBI, Kenya — At an astonishing number of hospitals around the world, if you don't pay up, you don't go home. Hospitals often detain patients long after they should be medically discharged, using armed guards, locked doors and even chains to hold those who have not settled their accounts. Mothers and babies are sometimes separated. Even death does not guarantee release: Government officials say Kenyan hospitals and morgues are holding hundreds of bodies until families can pay their loved ones' bills. By Medical Writer Maria Cheng. UPCOMING: 2,800 words at 4 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, Oct. 25. With photos and video, and an abridged version of 900 words.
HOSPITAL HOSTAGES-CONGO
LUBUMBASHI, Congo — The most surprising thing about the fact that Congolese hospitals detain patients who fail to pay their bills is that it's no secret: Administrators, doctors and nurses openly discuss it, and the patients are held in plain sight. An Associated Press investigation found that only one of more than 20 hospitals and clinics visited in the copper-mining metropolis of Lubumbashi does not imprison patients. By Medical Writer Maria Cheng. UPCOMING: 1,400 words at 4 a.m. Eastern on Friday, Oct. 26. With photos and video, and an abridged version of 900 words.
The AP
