Fri | Mar 29, 2024

Cuban doctor shot dead at Mexico hospital

Published:Tuesday | August 16, 2022 | 10:34 AM
The killing comes after criticism of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s plan to hire hundreds of Cuban doctors to work where Mexican doctors aren’t available, or in areas where they don’t want to work because they are too dangerous or remote.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Cuban doctor has been shot to death at a hospital in a rough neighbourhood on the outskirts of Mexico City, prosecutors in the State of Mexico confirmed late Monday.

The doctor, whose name was not provided, was killed Friday along with a nurse and another woman at a hospital in the suburb of Ecatepec.

The killing comes after criticism of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's plan to hire hundreds of Cuban doctors to work where Mexican doctors aren't available, or in areas where they don't want to work because they are too dangerous or remote.

The Cuban doctor killed in Ecatepec apparently arrived in Mexico some time ago and was not part of the current hiring programme.

However, his death raised the question of whether some areas of Mexico are too dangerous for Cuban doctors, as well.

A woman who identified herself as the victim's sister wrote in her Facebook account that the dead man was Ernesto Oliva Legra.

Prosecutors in the State of Mexico, which borders Mexico City, said two armed men entered the hospital in the early morning hours of Friday and asked for a female patient at the reception desk.

Being unable to locate her, the gunmen then forced the receptionist too open the door to a second-floor medical area, where they opened fire, killing the nurse and another woman, and wounding the doctor.

The doctor died later of his wounds at another hospital. Local media said the other victim was a woman who had been visiting a relative undergoing treatment.

Mexican gangs have been known to enter hospitals at gunpoint to finish off wounded rivals, and Mexico has also seen a wave of violence against medical personnel.

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