Hunger Strikers Win Victory At Northwestern For Patients With Undocumented Citizenship Status

By aaroncynic in News on Aug 6, 2013 8:40PM

Photo credit: Aaron Cynic/Chicagoist

Hunger strikers protesting outside Northwestern Memorial Hospital in support of patients with undocumented citizenship status won a victory on Monday, the seventh day of their strike. After attempting to enter the hospital several times, the group secured a meeting with hospital officials who said they would no longer require documentation of citizenship status for patients to be added to transplant lists.

Officials told Father Jose Landaverde, one of the strikers, patients would only need to prove they have lived in the Chicago area for a year. Officials also said they would work with both Rush Medical Center and University of Illinois Medical Center to address the strikers’ demands.

The group however, says their fight isn’t over and plans to set their sites on Christ Advocate Hospital in Oak Lawn. “It is evil what this hospital is doing,” Father Landaverde said in a press release. “This is supposedly a Christian hospital, yet they routinely turn people away and leave them to die.” The group of 14 hunger strikers and their supporters plan to occupy public space around the hospital beginning at noon tomorrow.