Day: April 1, 2024
(NewsNation) — A dream vacation in Mexico turned into a double nightmare for two Americans. First, a paralyzing accident. Then, what one victim calls “medical extortion.”
“You’re in a hospital with people that you think are there [to] help people and save lives, and it wasn’t happening,” Justin Raiford told “NewsNation Prime” about the accident on the beach near Tulum, Mexico that instantly paralyzed his partner, Jared Hill.
That was one tragedy. Then, says Raiford, the hospital they found demanded thousands of dollars before admitting Hill, and thousands more to perform life-saving surgery on his spine.
Romania and Bulgaria partially join Europe’s Schengen travel zone, but checks at land borders remain
Raiford, now in Texas where Hill is receiving care, says it was a nightmare “to have a life-threatening critical situation … to be held for ransom to have life-saving surgery that the neurosurgeons said he needed, or he was going to die.”
“This isn’t extortion. This isn’t bribery. This is how Mexico does business,” according to NewsNation national security contributor Tracy Walder.
She says Mexico’s national health care system provides free care for its citizens and residents in government-run hospitals.
“However,” she says, “there are private hospitals. The way that they do business is they do ask for payment up front.”
Walder says the ethics of that system may be dubious, but it’s “incorrect” to expect another country’s health system to run the same as medicine in the U.S.
Raiford isn’t sure about any recourse he has and wonders about how other Americans in Mexico will be treated. “I realize I’m more fortunate than some other people because … I could come up with the ransom money. Well, what would it be like for someone else? Would their loved one just die?”
Walder says, when you’re planning an overseas trip, one way to help stay safe is the SOS app, which lets you directly contact emergency services wherever you may be.
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- Russia is fortifying its Black Sea Fleet with barges, says the UK’s defense ministry.
- The barges are meant to “enhance the defences of the port” against Ukraine’s attacks, per the UK.
- Russia’s naval capabilities have taken significant losses since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Russia is now resorting to barges to shore up the defenses for its Black Sea Fleet.
“Recent imagery analysis has identified four barges positioned at the entrance to the Black Sea Fleet facility of Novorossiysk Sea Port,” the UK’s defense ministry said in an intelligence dispatch on Sunday.
“This is an effort to enhance the defences of the port against attacks from Ukrainian Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs),” the intelligence dispatch said.
Ukrainian’s successful use of the USVs, the UK defense ministry said, also resulted in the Black Sea Fleet’s former commander, Admiral Viktor Sokolov, being replaced with with Vice Admiral Sergei Pinchuk.
And the barges being there mean Pinchuk “likely sought to improve the survival chances of Russian vessels by adopting further preventative and defensive measures, including narrowing the entrance gap to port facilities,” per the UK defense ministry’s assessment.
— Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) March 31, 2024
Russia’s navy has taken significant hits since the country invaded Ukraine in February 2022. In February, the head of the UK’s armed forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, said 25% of Russia’s vessels in the Black Sea had been sunk or damaged.
“Putin’s continued illegal occupation of Ukraine is exacting a massive cost on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet which is now functionally inactive,” UK defense secretary Grant Shapps said on March 24.
Representatives for Russia’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
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