The Government of Valle del Cauca, in Colombia, informed Citizen Free Press this Sunday that it has requested the Attorney General’s Office to investigate the death of a newborn baby who was transferred by ambulance to the neonatal unit in Cali early this morning.
“A call has already been made to the investigation bodies, to the Prosecutor’s Office to initiate the investigation into the case to see who should respond,” the Government told Citizen Free Press.
Until this Sunday the Prosecutor’s Office had not publicly ruled on the petition.
The Government said that “a group of indigenous people,” which it did not identify, maintained a blockade in support of the national strike and it was there “that they did not let the baby pass, the baby died there.”
According to the Government, the people who were in the blockade told the medical personnel to make a vehicle transfer, but the baby’s condition did not allow it. He did not explain further details.
Although it is not known who were the people who set up the blockade on the road, the governor of Valle del Cauca, Clara Luz Roldán, asked this Sunday on Twitter the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca ( CRIC) and to the Indigenous Minga “a pronouncement on the death of the baby” and the immediate unblocking of all avenues.
The CRIC press team told Citizen Free Press this Sunday that they were not in that sector of Valle del Cauca and that during the blockades they have made during the national strike they have always allowed the passage of ambulances and medical services.
The other organizations have not commented on the incident, but Citizen Free Press is seeking their reactions.
In a statement, the departmental secretary of Health, María Cristina Lesmes, considered this as “a serious infraction” which “should have been reported by the competent authorities, the hospital management, to the Ministry of Health as one of the most serious affectations. that the department of Valle del Cauca has received in the use of the services of the medical mission”.
So far and since the blockades began on April 28 in the framework of the protests over the already withdrawn tax reform project, 123 infractions to the medical mission have been presented in Valle del Cauca, of which 49 have been attacks to ambulances that prevented the transfer of patients, according to Lesmes.