As mentioned below there are two new important reports out.
This is the second and it looks at the medical care of the detainees (or more precisely, the lack thereof) and the psychological trauma from the years of being imprisoned without charge and with no end in sight.
From the executive summary:
There have been many more such assertions in the intervening years and since. Following an in-depth review
of publicly available information related to medical care at Guantánamo—both past and present—as well as
consultations with independent civilian medical experts and detainees’ lawyers, the Center for Victims of
Torture and Physicians for Human Rights have determined that none of those assertions is accurate.
To the contrary, notwithstanding Guantánamo’s general inaccessibility to independent civilian medical
professionals, over the years a handful of them have managed to access detainees, review medical
records, and interface with Guantánamo’s medical care system to a degree sufficient to document a host
of systemic and longstanding deficiencies in care. These include:
• Medical needs are subordinated to security functions. For example, prosecutors in a military
commission case told the judge explicitly that the commander of Guantánamo’s detention
operations is free to disregard recommendations of Guantánamo’s senior medical officer.
• Detainees’ medical records are devoid of physical and psychological trauma histories. This is
largely a function of medical professionals’ inability or unwillingness to ask detainees about
torture or other traumatic experiences during their time in the CIA’s rendition, detention, and
interrogation program, or otherwise with respect to interrogations by U.S. forces—which has led
to misdiagnoses and improper treatment.
• In large part due to a history of medical complicity in torture, many detainees distrust military
medical professionals which has led repeatedly to detainees reasonably refusing care that they need.
DEPRIVATION AND DESPAIR: The Crisis of Medical Care at Guantánamo
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• Guantánamo officials withhold from detainees their own medical records, including through
improper classification.
• Both expertise and equipment are increasingly insufficient to address detainees’ health needs.
For example, a military cardiologist concluded that an obese detainee required testing for
coronary artery disease, but that Guantánamo did not have the “means to test” him, and so the
testing was not performed. With regard to mental health, effective torture rehabilitation services
are not, and cannot be made, available at Guantánamo.
• Detainees have been subjected to neglect. One detainee urgently required surgery for a condition
he disclosed to Guantánamo medical personnel in 2007—and they diagnosed independently in
2010—but he did not receive surgery until 2018 and appears permanently damaged as a result.
• Military medical professionals rotate rapidly in and out of Guantánamo, which has caused
discontinuity of care. For example, one detainee recently had three primary care physicians in the
course of three months.
• Detainees’ access to medical care and, in some cases, their exposure to medical harm, turn
substantially on their involvement in litigation. For example, it appears extremely difficult, if not
impossible, for detainees who are not in active litigation to access independent civilian medical
professionals, and for those who are to address a medical need that is not related to the litigation.
For detainees charged before the military commissions, prosecution interests have superseded
medical interests, as with a detainee who was forced to attend court proceedings on a gurney
writhing in pain while recovering from surgery.
These deficiencies are exacerbated by—and in some cases a direct result of—the damage that the men
have endured, and continue to endure, from torture and prolonged indefinite detention.
h/o to Shelby
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