Survivors of Panama mass poisoning call for justice

The death of nearly 300 people from medicine provided by Panama’s Social Security Fund (CSS) reverberated around the world, but no one has taken the blame.

Now the Committee of Relatives for the Right to Health and Life (Cofadesavi) is calling for the head of the current CSS director.

"The president and the board of the Social Security Fund should take action on the matter and call for the resignation of Guillermo Sáez-Llorens, and put in place a person with capacity says Cofadesavi president Gabriel Pascual, He accuses the director of disegarding problems, lack of input for specialized tests, delays in appointments and failure to carry out tests require by people who survive poisoning with drugs containing Social Security diethylene glycol, a chemical used in antifreeze for cars.
Pasqual said that the problem has been forgotten by the administration He also questioned why a lot of people hospitalized are affected by the lack of planning for growth leading to overcrowded facilities.
 "They have had three years in power and failed to fix the problem. We have requested the resignation of Guillermo Sáez-Llorens and his team for obvious inadequacy, he told RPC Radio and announced that on October 2 as part of the commemoration of the sixth anniversary of the mass poisoning there will be a march on the Supreme Court, at 3:00 pm, to seek to expedite the investigation file that is in the hands of Judge of the Second Court, Luis Mario Carrasco.

He also called on substitute judge Wilfredo Saenz to rule in the case of the beating given by members of the Institutional Protection Service to poisoned patients during a demonstration  near the Presidency on July 9, 2007.
The poisoning scandal; came too light when local media media were alerted to the strange death of patients in the CSS. Challenged to explain what was happening made the authorities recognized the deaths at an October 2 press conference and announced the creation of a commission to study the problem.
Nine days later, October 11, the Ministry of Health and the CSS disclosed that toxic diethylene glycol was present in government drugs and two days later reported that it had been purchased instead of glycerin used as a base for manufacturing cough syrup in government laboratories.
The mass poisoning has claimed to date the lives of at least 286 people and hundreds more who survived live with the life time consequences of taking the poison some destined to an early death..