Between February and June 2006, Human Rights Watch and the Association for the Promotion of Human Rights and Detained Persons conducted an investigation into the detention of insolvent hospital patients in Burundi. Of 11 hospitals visited, nine were found to be holding former patients in detention for being unable to pay their hospital bills. Thirty-seven detained patients, and key informants in government, hospital administration and health services, were interviewed. The detention of insolvent hospital patients was described as a routine practice, dating from the 1990s. Conditions of detention included overcrowding, insufficient food and water, and withholding of further medical treatment. Seventy-two per cent of patients interviewed had been detained for 1 month or longer at the time of interview. Mechanisms designed to exempt or reimburse the health fees of low-income and indigent people failed to protect patients from becoming detained. The detention of insolvent patients is a clear violation of rights established under international law, including the right not to be arbitrarily detained or detained as debtors and the right to accessible health care. The abolition of user fees for women giving birth and for small children in May 2006 has reduced the number of detained patients, but in June 2006 we visited two hospitals and found 77 detained men, older children and women with other health problems. Burundi, with the support of the international community, must immediately stop the detention of patients and address the urgent financing needs of health facilities.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 11. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 November 2020.
All research outputs
#4,255,411
of 34,404,538 outputs
Outputs from Health Policy & Planning
#850
of 2,602 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#13,730
of 123,924 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Health Policy & Planning
#5
of 12 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,404,538 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 87th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,602 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.6. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 123,924 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 12 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its contemporaries.
