Brazil: No medical care to Olympics visitors

Due to lack of funding,
Doctors’ union in Rio has warned that Olympic visitors will not get medical attention if they fall sick during 2016 games. Some major hospitals have been forced to close while even the most seriously ill patients cannot be admitted because of a funding shortfall

Union leaders said the state of Rio de Janeiro was not prepared for the extra burden of the Olympics Games in seven months’ time, which could bring as many as an extra million people to the city.

Jorge Darze, president of SinMed, the doctors’ union in Rio, said: “We are really in a very serious situation in which there is not the slightest possibility of a short-term solution.

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“Our objective is not to stop people coming but to make sure those who come know that there will not be facilities when they fall sick in Brazil.”

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Health officials have linked virus to thousands of cases of infant brain damage