Police subject HCM doctors to 9-hour-long interrogation – Order

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Police subject HCM doctors to 9-hour-long interrogation – Order

12:05 CAT | 23 Aug 2018

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The Mozambican Order of Doctors (OrMM) yesterday accused the police of forcibly subjecting two doctors to a nine-hour interrogation over the death of a police officer’s family member.

The OrMM says in a “letter of repudiation” that, on the 13th of this month, six agents of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) took an internist and a resident doctor from the Emergency Services of Maputo Central Hospital to the police station at the hospital unit and to another outside.

Between 3:00 p.m. and midnight of that day, the doctors were questioned over the death of a relative of a police officer, the note said.

According to OrMM, a criminal case, whose number is not revealed, was opened against the doctors, who suffered emotional, psychological and verbal violence, the statement adds.

“These acts of violence occurred after the death of a patient, a family member of an alleged PRM officer, who suffered from comorbidity, [hypertension, diabetes mellitus, heart and kidney failure],” the OrMM note details.

Doctors were taken away by the police ten minutes after the death, the OrMM claiming the relatives of the deceased made threats and insults and forced the medical team to stop seeing patients.

“The opening of a medical liability investigation is duly reflected in the Statutes of the Medical Association, and for a case to be filed it is essential that the complaint be duly sent to the Order of Doctors,” the statement reads.

OrmM points out that the police do not have the requisite skills to assess cause of death, and urges competent institutions and the general public to unite against any repetition of this type of action, which may deprive the population of adequate medical care.

Source: Lusa