Statement condemning the repression and attacks by security forces on hospitals and health centers in Ecuador
El CLACSO Working Group on International Health and Health Sovereignty We express our deep condemnation and concern about the social, health and human rights protection situation in Ecuador.
First, we condemn the serious violations of the right to health care by the Ecuadorian government's security and military forces, who today carried out repeated tear gas bombings of public health facilities, including attacks on public hospitals such as the emblematic Eugenio Espejo Hospital, maternity wards, childcare facilities, and other health centers in the country.
Likewise, we condemn the repressive persecution by security forces and the military of health professionals working in medical assistance posts in various parts of the city of Quito and the country amidst the massive and growing social mobilizations of protest against the economic package of President Lenin Moreno and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
From our South-South international health perspective, we demand that the United Nations system and the Government of Ecuador guarantee full access to medical care for injured and life-threatening protesters in the country's public health services, hospitals, and healthcare centers, and end any repressive attacks on health facilities.
We also demand an end to the criminalization of citizens organized and mobilized to provide healthcare from civil society organizations and Ecuadorian universities.
Rather than guaranteeing the geopolitics of the IMF's financial power and the structural adjustment of disaster capitalism, we call on the Ecuadorian government to immediately and without speculation guarantee universal access to healthcare as a fundamental human right.
We call upon institutions and university centers, especially those focused on collective health and social medicine in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as social organizations and movements advocating for the right to health, and popular actors across the continent, to increase regional solidarity strategies with the protests and social struggles of the Ecuadorian people.
October 2019
CLACSO Working Group
International Health and Health Sovereignty
