'I'd rather stay home and die': Fear of hospitals is driving coronavirus deaths in Mexico
MEXICO CITY — A gray Suzuki stopped outside the General Hospital of Mexico and deposited a heaving Victor Bailón at the entrance. He had refused to come to the hospital for days, convinced that doctors were killing coronavirus patients. By the time he hobbled into the triage area and collapsed on the floor, it was too late.Mexico is battling one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world, with more than 52,000 confirmed deaths, the third-highest toll of the pandemic.
Fighting infections at home may not only spread the disease more widely, epidemiologists say, but it also hides the true toll of the epidemic because an untold number of people die without ever being tested — and officially counted — as coronavirus victims. The distrust is so pronounced that relatives of patients in Ecatepec, a municipality outside of Mexico City, stormed a hospital in May, attacking its employees, filming themselves next to bags of corpses and telling reporters that the institution was killing their loved ones.
Adding to the confusion, political leaders here, as in many countries, have sown doubts about the virus and the need to seek medical care. The hugely popular president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said he uses religious amulets and his clean conscience to protect against the coronavirus, and he has advocated fighting the pandemic at home, with the help of families, rather than in hospitals.
Many are wary of the costs that come with a hospital stay. And in a country plagued by rampant government corruption, the fundamental distrust of authorities often extends to doctors and nurses in public hospitals. He said he had met seven families of patients who had come in for another illness and then died of the coronavirus.Pérez did not believe the rumors at first, but then doctors told him that his sister, who was still intubated after her brain surgery, had tested positive for coronavirus. Now he was frantic, calling all his relatives, telling them the hospital wanted his sister dead.López, Mexico City’s health minister, said that rumors of malicious medical practices had been widespread.
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