Puerto Rico agency sues to obtain death data

Anger builds on island as people seek answers

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s Institute of Statistics announced Friday that it has sued the U.S. territory’s health department and demographic registry seeking to obtain data on the number of deaths following Hurricane Maria as a growing number of critics accuse the government of lacking transparency.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday, the same day Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told CNN there would be “hell to pay” if officials don’t release mortality data. Puerto Rico’s Health Department released some information Friday, saying an additional 1,397 overall deaths were reported from September to December in 2017, compared with the same period the previous year. but officials did not provide causes of death for any of the 11,459 total people deceased during the period.

The institute’s director, Mario Marazzi-Santiago, said that he was pleased with the information released, but that the lawsuit will continue because officials have not released details of each individual death.

Many believe the official toll of 64 deaths is a severe undercount, and anger is building across the island as the families of victims seek answers.

“We demand that they tell us everything,” said Lucy Landro, who lives on the island of Vieques off Puerto Rico’s east coast and lost her elderly uncle after the hurricane hit. “People should know the reality that all towns are facing. We in Vieques aren’t the only ones who are suffering.”

Marazzi-Santiago said the information requested should be public and is urgently needed so Puerto Rico’s government can help prevent deaths in the event of another storm, noting that the Atlantic hurricane season began on Friday.

“We want to make sure that when the next hurricane arrives, we don’t have a repeat of this situation,” he said.

He said the institute won a similar lawsuit it filed in 2010 to obtain mortality data from the health department amid accusations that the government was not properly counting or classifying overall deaths.

“Government officials have said they cannot release mortality data post-Maria because it is under review as ordered by the governor. On Friday afternoon, Demographic Registry Director Wanda Llovet said in a statement that her office is being transparent and that not all information is public because they have to protect people’s privacy. Her office said there was a 24 percent increase in deaths in September 2017 compared with the same month the previous year, along with a 29 percent increase in October 2017 and an 8 percent increase in November 2017.