ARTICLE - HOSPITAL PROTEST

HAITI'S BIGGEST HOSPITAL SHUTS DOWN AMID PROTEST
(Taiwan News) - By Trenton Daniel (AP)

About two dozen union workers protested the need for better working conditions and a new leadership at Haiti's biggest hospital Wednesday, sending an unknown number of desperately poor patients to seek medical treatment elsewhere.

The daylong protest is the strongest sign yet in recent weeks that union workers at the General Hospital have grown disgusted with the facility's management after they began an on-again, off-again strike last month.

Demonstrators told an Associated Press reporter that they plan to block the front gate to the facility for a second day on Thursday, a move bent on halting medical services as it keeps out doctors and nurses.

"The administration needs to leave and put in a new one so the hospital can work the way it should," said Sergo Castor, a clerk in the pharmacy and the union official who led the protests.

Riot police fired tear gas canisters at the protesters amid reports of rock-throwing outside the hospital. Protesters denied they threw rocks.

Hospital officials couldn't be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.

Roseline Jean-Marie said she's heard more complaints from patients that they were once able to receive free medical services but now must pay for them. And those fees, she said, continue to climb. She said a blood test once cost $1.80; now it costs $3.75. Medical exams once cost $7.50; now, she said, they fetch $18.

"This is extortion," said Jean-Marie, a 47-year-old janitor.

The ability for hospital officials to resolve the workers' grievances has been held up in part because questions abound over who's exactly in charge in the ministries. More than three months after he took office, President Michel Martelly has failed to see his picks for prime minister approved by lawmakers, leading many government services in limbo. The first-time politician is due soon to select a third nominee.

The 700-bed hospital has long been overburdened and underfinanced. Few Haitians have regular access to health care.