Access to public health care is confined to Houthis
Access to public health care is confined to Houthis الثلاثاء 25 فبراير 2020 07:48 م الصحوة نت - خاص Alsahwa Net- The access to health care at public hospitals in the Houthis-held areas has been changed into an exclusive right for the Houthis and their household members, citizens and medical sources say.
One year ago, the Houthis’ Health Minister, Taha Al-Mutwakel, instructed all public health facilities in the Houthis-held areas to only treat Houthis patients or those whose relatives are fighting for the Houthis’ side.
Al-Mutwakel dismissed two managers of two public hospitals in Sana’a when he found that the two hospitals provide service to citizens who have no relative Houthis-fighters.
A doctor of the Cardiology Center at the Military Hospital in Sana’a who requested anonymity, said in a conversation with Alsahwa Net that the he could not treat his mother at the hospital because he has not a relative fighting for the Houthis’ side.
The doctor had to take his mother to a private clinic despite his seven-year service at the public hospital.
Denying health care to citizens who have no relatives fighting for the Houthis causes serious health complications to patients who go to public hospitals seeking treatment and end up with rejection.
Abbas Al-Suraihi, was about to pass away when Emergency Department of Al-Thawrah Public Hospital in Sana’a refused to provide any first aid to his injuries he sustained in a traffic accident, Mohammed Yasser, Al-Suraihi’s relative said in a conversation with the Alsahwa Net.
Al-Suraihi had to go to the University of Science and Technology Hospital where doctors told him that he had internal bleeding.
Another doctor from Al-Jumhoori Public Hospital in Sana’a, said that the place is about to be an exclusive health facility for the Houthis’ fighters’ relative patients who presently occupy about 85 percent of in-patients and intensive care units’ beds.
He said that majority of the Houthis’ patients come to the hospital at late night and the militants force the medical staff to come with no payment for overtime work.
“If they called a doctor at night and he did not show up or switched off his phone, the militants come in a military vehicle to the doctor’s house and on the following day, the Houthis official at the hospital issues a dismissal memo to the doctor,” the doctor said.
“Dismissal punishment against the medical staff is taken only when the patient is Houthis-affiliate, but we are expose to imprisonment and dismissal if we treat other citizens during working hours,” the doctor said.
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