León, Nicaragua
Doctors fired: More than 40 doctors, surgeons, nurses, and other medical workers were fired last week from a public hospital in Nicaragua’s second-largest city, León, after they disobeyed government orders not to treat wounded protesters. Aaron Delgado said he was operating on a breast cancer patient when he was told to immediately report to human resources, where he was handed a letter and fired. “All this,” he said, “because a month ago, outside the hospital, we treated the wounded from a massacre perpetrated by the government’s paramilitaries.” The letters gave no reason for the dismissals, but the doctors say the hospital director told them it was because of “political reasons.” During the three months of protest against the autocratic rule of President Daniel Ortega, at least 448 people have been killed— most of them demonstrators—and thousands more injured.