Cuba Court Dishes Out Sentences for Hospital Deaths

By Circles Robinson

HAVANA TIMES, Jan. 31 — A Havana court sentenced several personnel including the director of the Havana Psychiatric Hospital to prison terms of 5 to 15 years for the deaths of 26 patients a year ago, informed an official Cuban news service on Monday.

Hospital director Wilfredo Castillo Donante was given the stiffest sentence of 15 years while his assistant director, Roberto Maza Izquierdo was handed a 14 year sentence.  The hospital’s chief dietician Josefina Díaz Arango was sentenced to 12 years.

Also sentenced for abandoning people with disabilities under their protection was: Arianna Ramos Saíz, vice-director of surgery and Ivo Noa Gonzalez, vice-director of nursing received 10 year sentences and the vice director of Psychiatry, Susana Angela Borges Gonzalez was sentenced to 7 years in prison.

Others sentenced for embezzlement of hospital funds were Miguel Villalobo Lopez, the head of the hospital warehouse to 10 years; Alvaro Fidel Castañeda Rodriguez, in charge of the fridge-freezer to 9 years; and kitchen workers Darwy Marquez Matamoros (6 years); Nestor Diaz Garcia (6 years); Gerardo Miguez Callejas (5 years); Dionisio Alfaro Feijoo (6 years), and Jorge Mateo Lay (6 years).

Those receiving sentences have ten working days to file an appeal, reported the ACN news.

For  more information on the hospital deaths case see: http://havanatimes.org/?p=35979