1500 hospital patients evicted for WEF?
imc-pl | 02.04.2004 12:01 | Globalisation | Health | World
A PAP report claims that 1500 ill people in Warsaw hospitals will be evicted for the WEF summit. The true purpose is unclear, but officially is for WEF participants and protestors (maybe healthy, maybe as victims of violence). [en]
1500 hospital beds in Warsaw hospitals will be reserved for "summit participants and antiglobalists". A week before the summit, hospital patients will be sent home and surgical operations will be rescheduled. During the 3 days 28-30 April, about 20 hospitals will be concerned.
Szpital Śródmiesjki (City-centre Hospital) on Solec street and the hospital on Barskiej street will close down most normal functions; the hospitals on Wołoskiej and Szaserów streets will free up 57 of their 182 beds for official summit guests.
The problem of ambulances is unsolved - Warsaw only has 43 ambulances ready. Spokesperson Edyta Grabowska-Woźniak of the Municipal Crisis Reponse Group (Stołeczna Stacja Pogotowia Ratunkowego) says that these will definitely *not* be reserved for VIPs, and that about 100 ambulances are needed, as was the case for the Prague IMF summit.
Nobody knows who will pay for the hospital beds, which cost about 3000-4000 PLN per day, i.e. about 1000 euros/day. There does not seem to be any published information on whether the bed reservations are really intended for official summit participants (or
support staff) or for foreign activists or for both, and whether they are intended for normal sleeping or for medical treatment of victims of police violence (tear gas, water cannon, beating with clubs,...). The hypothesis of this being a scare tactic to promote a vague, uninformed fear of violence by Warsaw residents is consistent with scare
tactics used earlier in other cities.
According to this PAP report, quoted on poprostu:
http://wiadomosci.poprostu.pl/?id=1080628922&row=1078833451
Szpital Śródmiesjki (City-centre Hospital) on Solec street and the hospital on Barskiej street will close down most normal functions; the hospitals on Wołoskiej and Szaserów streets will free up 57 of their 182 beds for official summit guests.
The problem of ambulances is unsolved - Warsaw only has 43 ambulances ready. Spokesperson Edyta Grabowska-Woźniak of the Municipal Crisis Reponse Group (Stołeczna Stacja Pogotowia Ratunkowego) says that these will definitely *not* be reserved for VIPs, and that about 100 ambulances are needed, as was the case for the Prague IMF summit.
Nobody knows who will pay for the hospital beds, which cost about 3000-4000 PLN per day, i.e. about 1000 euros/day. There does not seem to be any published information on whether the bed reservations are really intended for official summit participants (or
support staff) or for foreign activists or for both, and whether they are intended for normal sleeping or for medical treatment of victims of police violence (tear gas, water cannon, beating with clubs,...). The hypothesis of this being a scare tactic to promote a vague, uninformed fear of violence by Warsaw residents is consistent with scare
tactics used earlier in other cities.
According to this PAP report, quoted on poprostu:
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