Opinion: Hospitals that act as modern-day debtor prisons deny rights and dignity
In some countries, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, hospitals have become modern-day debtor prisons, refusing to release patients until they have paid their medical bills.
Around the world, human-rights activists fight on behalf of people imprisoned in unsanitary jails and denied a fair trial. These victims often suffer the double indignity of being mistreated by their captors and deprived of basic services. In many countries, these abuses are not only taking places in prisons, but in hospitals, too.
A that I co-authored with Tom Brookes and Eloise Whitaker shows that up to hundreds of thousands of people are detained in hospitals against their will each year. Their crime? Being too poor to
