Babies' deaths at Mexican hospital prompt calls for better heal

COMITAN, Mexico -- Alberto Perez was devastated when his baby boy died at Comitan's hospital. He soon found out he was not alone.

"Your baby died too?" someone in the waiting room asked.

"Did you hear about the twins?" another parent piped in.

Before long, 13 families were united in grief and anger over the deaths of infants at the small hospital. And when they went as a group to the prosecutor's office to see about filing charges, they found 12 more families doing the same.

Inadequate health care has long been a fact of life in the neediest regions of Mexico and other developing countries, a condition stoically accepted by the poor. But the anger that boiled over in Comitan has touched a nerve in Mexico, setting off a national media furor, an official investigation and demands for better care across the country.

Health officials say the 26 infant deaths in December were twice the usual number for the hospital in this southern town. Officials removed the top two administrators, have exhumed almost all the babies' bodies for tests, and are not ruling out criminal charges.

A preliminary investigation found no signs of an epidemic or virus -- only desperate poverty and a rudimentary health system.

Located 40 miles from the border with Guatemala, Comitan's hospital has fewer than 500 employees while serving nearly a half million people, mostly rural Indians who have to travel hours by foot or bus to get even basic care.

The region is one of Mexico's poorest, and has always suffered from a higher infant mortality rate than the national rate of 3 percent. Residents rely on herbal medicine, midwives and even witchcraft in trying to stay healthy.

Infant deaths are even worse in Africa and parts of Asia. In the southern African nation of Mozambique, for example, 13 percent of all infants died at birth in 1999, four times Mexico's rate.

But the deaths in Comitan have shaken many Mexicans into speaking out.

In the central city of Queretaro, lawmaker Enrique Becerra is denouncing the deaths of 24 babies in October at a maternity hospital there.

On Tuesday, Indians in the mountain town of Las Margaritas, 25 miles east of Comitan, seized their local clinic and demanded better access to doctors and medicine.

"If a baby is born here, it is born sick," Carmelina Aguilar said hours after she and dozens of others agreed to leave the clinic in return for talks with authorities. "The same thing that happened in Comitan is going to happen here."

For Irma Cruz, it already has.

Nine months into her pregnancy, she went to the clinic in Las Margaritas complaining of sharp pains, but was told to go home. When the contractions didn't stop, she was sent to Comitan, where she gave birth to a little girl. The baby died three days later, on Dec. 17.

Sitting in her wooden shack wallpapered with newspapers to keep out the cold, Cruz complained that the hospital staff treated her poorly, serving her breakfast with a cockroach in the food.

"I asked for a glass of water, but they just ignored me," she said. "I asked for a clean gown because the one I had was dirty, but they told me to wait for the next shift."

Other parents have similar complaints. They said there were no doctors over Christmas, when many of the babies became sick and died. And they said staff members ate Christmas dinner and opened presents in the neonatal unit, next to their children's incubators.

Raul Belmonte, the dismissed hospital director, didn't deny the charges, but said he was powerless to improve the situation. On Christmas Day, he said, doctors who were scheduled to work simply didn't come in.

"What am I supposed to do -- put out a sign that says: 'Don't get sick. Don't take vacation,"' he said.

But he denied the hospital was responsible for the deaths, arguing that a sharp increase in births and infant emergencies was behind the statistical rise. "We didn't kill anyone," he said.

The hospital blamed many of the deaths on cerebral hemorrhaging and infections. A preliminary investigation found that complications from premature births and poor prenatal care were often at the root of the babies' problems.

Margarita Nava, one of several federal health officials sent to help the hospital make improvements, said the deaths weren't necessarily a result of negligence.

"This could happen in any place with the same conditions," she said.

Health officials complain they are expected to work miracles with few resources and must try to help patients who often wait to seek treatment.

In Comitan, acting hospital director Bruno Ley said many of the 26 babies who died in December arrived with severe lung problems. "They came in practically suffocating," he said.

Many of the parents dispute that. They said their babies were born relatively healthy and became sick at the hospital.

Since December, the neonatal unit has been cleared and its door taped shut. A handwritten sign reads: "Temporarily out of service."

But premature babies are still fighting for life in the next room, where reporters and medical officials walk in and out without surgical masks or robes.

"It's not great but it's adequate," said pediatrician Francisco Dominguez. He pointed to a corner incubator with an infant born at seven months. "That baby isn't going to survive."

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