Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-09-Speech-3-195"
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"en.20050309.16.3-195"2
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"Mr President, the standards of medical practice and care in Libya leave a lot to be desired. There is a lack of local medical staff, medical expertise and training, as well as of proper medical facilities and equipment. The problem is more prominent in large, overcrowded city hospitals serving largely poor, underdeveloped urban areas, like the Al Fatah Hospital in Benghazi.
It was in that hospital, back in 1998, that an outbreak of HIV infection was discovered, affecting approximately 400 children. That outbreak was no surprise to western experts as they knew that the hygiene conditions in that hospital were abysmal and that it was only a matter of time before such a major infection catastrophe occurred.
The Libyan Government needed a scapegoat, which was found in the form of five nurses from Bulgaria and one doctor from Palestine. In countries like Libya, getting signed confessions under torture and setting up staged trials is no difficult task. While the international community stood back and watched, these six medical workers, who went to Libya in order to offer their services for the benefit of the Libyan people, were sentenced to death in 2004. They were found guilty of the ludicrous charge of deliberately infecting the children in the Benghazi hospital with HIV. It was alleged by Colonel Gaddafi himself that they did this as part of a CIA and Mossad plot to destabilise the country.
How can the situation now be remedied? First of all, the EU must take concrete action. I propose the following three steps. Firstly, the President of the European Parliament should request the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety to send a small delegation immediately to visit the imprisoned medical workers in Libya and to see Colonel Gaddafi and convey to him the strong wish of Parliament that these medical workers are pardoned and released immediately.
Secondly, the EU, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, should immediately send a team of medical experts to Libya to assess the situation in relation to the HIV epidemic in the country and offer expert advice and help to deal with the problem.
Thirdly, the EU should take further drastic initiatives in order quickly to lead Libya out of the isolation imposed by the western world from 1992 to 2003.
Such actions, if effective, would be of mutual benefit to the EU in terms of trade enhancement, and to the people of Libya in terms of improving their standard of living."@en1
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