Photo: Scott Olson / Getty Images
For: EFE Updated 29 Apr 2022, 04: 13 pm EDT
WASHINGTON – The new segments of the wall that former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) ordered build on the border with Mexico have caused an increase in deaths and hospitalizations of immigrants who tried to cross, according to a study published this Friday in the journal medical JAMA.
The investigation analyzes the registry of the level 1 trauma unit of the medical center of the University of California in San Diego.
Its author, physician Jay J. Doucet, collected data from the period from 2016 to 2018 and the compared with those of the interval between 2017 and 2021, after Trump ordered to replace some 406 miles of barriers ranging from 6 to 17 feet from to structure by a steel wall of more than 30 feet tall, which added 18 additional miles .
The study found that hospital admissions for falls from Trump’s wall increased significantly from 2019, when its construction was completed on the border with Mexico.
Hospital admissions multiplied by 5, going from 67 between and 2018 a 375 between and 2021. Besides, there were two deaths due to falls in this last period, while between 1200 and 2018 there were none.
The study focuses not only on the human cost of Trump’s wall, but also on the economic one, and points out that the increase in hospitalizations caused a expense of $ million dollars.
“Caring for these immigrants wounded is not only a humanitarian problem, but a public health crisis that worsened access to beds in the trauma center, caused staff shortages and affected the morale of professionals”, details the investigation.
The increase in admissions to that health center added to the tensions caused by the covid pandemic-19, what in 2020 began to fill the trauma units with patients with respiratory problems.
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