(IPYS/IFEX) – On 23 November 2005, the management of “Antonio Maria Pineda” Central Hospital denied access to the premises to journalist Liza Canelón of the newspaper “El Impulso”, in the central-west state of Lara, claiming that entry to the hospital was forbidden. Canelón went to the hospital to make enquiries about an alleged case of […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 23 November 2005, the management of “Antonio Maria Pineda” Central Hospital denied access to the premises to journalist Liza Canelón of the newspaper “El Impulso”, in the central-west state of Lara, claiming that entry to the hospital was forbidden.
Canelón went to the hospital to make enquiries about an alleged case of medical negligence. She was initially stopped at the door by a guard who told her she had to request authorization to go in. The journalist then approached the hospital’s management in order to request permission, but the health centre’s assistant director, Maria Teresa Perez, denied it.
Nowhere in the hospital’s regulations does it say that access to the press should be controlled by its management, nor is there any national law stating this. Several cases of restrictions on access to health centres have been recorded this year, always in circumstances in which the management’s work might have been in question.
