JUAREZ, Mexico (Border Report) – Hospitals in the border state of Chihuahua have provided emergency care for 4,573 migrants in the past 15 months. At least 10% have required hospitalization for illness or injury. State officials say it’s an unprecedented number on par with the rise in migrants in transit to the United States through Mexico.
The totals included a large but unspecified number of minors who are part of foreign family units in transit through Mexico to the United States. Chihuahua doctors are caring for migrant children coming into emergency rooms with intestinal and respiratory infections, bone fractures and stab wounds, among others, said Dr. Carlos Benitez Pineda, a state epidemiologist. Some teen-aged girls have come in with complications related to pregnancy.
Benitez said state doctors in the past three weeks have performed surgery on three migrant children who were struck by cars while walking on the side of highways with their families. One of them is Yahir, 5, a survivor of a one-vehicle rollover that claimed the lives of two adult migrants and injured the child and an adult on the Chihuahua-Juarez Highway.
“Yahir is stable now. His jaw had been fractured. He has undergone surgery and is now in convalescence,” Benitez said.
The other seriously injured minors are a pair of Ecuadoran siblings ages 4 and 7 who also were struck by cars. One underwent successful hip-repair surgery and was recently allowed to leave the hospital and rejoin his family, state officials said.
“We are seeing a noticeable increase in pediatric hospitalizations involving children who are migrants. It’s the first year we have seen this,” Benitez said.
State authorities said they treat migrants – adults and children – the same as Mexican residents. They probably receive even more attention due to the stressful conditions of travel; psychologists, social workers and nutrition experts usually interact with them during their stay, Benitez said.
Care of adult migrants often involves untreated infections that get worse by the day, as well as traumatic injuries.
Last Wednesday, a Venezuelan migrant named Hector was beaten, allegedly by smugglers who thought they had killed him. They wrapped his body in a blanket and left it near the Rio Grande. Juarez paramedics assisted Hector, who remained unconscious in a hospital as of late Thursday with a fractured skull.
