Many hospitals detain patients who can’t pay

­In more than 30 countries around the world, there are hospitals that hold patients prisoner until they can settle their accounts, sometimes long after they should be medically discharged, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Detentions were found in countries including Kenya, Congo, the Philippines, India, China, Thailand, Bulgaria, Bolivia, and Iran.

“What’s striking about this issue is that the more we look for this, the more we find it,” said Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and K.T. Li Professor of Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in an October 25, 2018 AP article. “It’s probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, that this affects worldwide.”

Read the AP article: At many hospitals worldwide, you don’t pay, you can’t leave