The Migrants of Guantanamo Bay by Jim Etchison This is a true story based on the verbal account of someone who was there. This was published in Inklings magazine (a little literary pub in Denver Colorado) in 1995.

Over the thunder of rain on canvas, I can hear the cries of the sick, the clatter of medical utensils and the convoluted jargon of the U.S. Navy's medical personnel. I stand over patient number 52792: an adult Haitian migrant. His eyes are closed. I take his wrist, measure his pulse, and make a mark on his chart. His vitals are normal. Something doesn't seem right, so I lift his arm straight up above his face and drop it. His arm flops neatly to his side. A conscious man's arm always falls to his side; an unconscious man will let his arm hit him right in the face. I lift the arm again and drop it. He's faking it. This medical facility is the only place accessible to the Haitians that is equipped with A.C. That's why he's here -- to get out of the heat. He must leave and make room for others, but a new procedure mandates that we not turn any migrant away until medically cleared. As long as there is a scintilla of a chance that something truly ails this man, I may not force him to leave. The brass clamped down on this rule after an incident with a Haitian woman who came in repeatedly. She always claimed to be suffering from blackouts and headaches, and we knew she had a heart murmur, but there was little we could do and we sent her back to her tent every time. Finally one day she was carried into our facility twitching and convulsing -- as if in a voodoo trance. Some of the nurses had said the woman practiced Haitian witchcraft. We assumed it was all show, to try and get a med-evac into the U.S. Either that, or she truly was in a voodoo trance. She was almost turned away, but I stopped them and checked her out anyway. I found that she had had a stroke, an arterial thrombosis, and an abdominal mass which turned out to be twins. When the C.O. found out that she was almost not admitted, the rules changed. I've been here almost ninety days -- a short assignment. With daily emergencies, the stress and the long hours, my days as a G.P. have gone by with blurring speed. At nights I lie alone in my tent thinking about my wife and child. I motion for a translator to help me. "Go ahead, Doctor," he says. "I know you're awake," I tell patient 52792. "Do you want to see Camp Seven?" The translator speaks in Creole to the man. No response. Camp Seven is our prison facility. I check his I.D. bracelet for slits. Small slits are often sometimes cut in the I.D. bracelets so the number can be changed with someone who has been in-processed. His is unbroken. An L.V.N. rushes past. I touch her on the shoulder. She's blonde -- perfect for getting his attention. "Catheterize this gentleman," I say. "We need a urine sample." This, I think, might bring his around. I attend to a few other patients nearby -- mostly malaria cases, measles, pregnant women, and a few curious rashes. The patients don't speak a word to me. When I arrive at their bedside, they simply lift their T-shirts and point at the source of their malaise. Though the Haitians will often feign injury and take a hospital bed from a critically injured person, they suffer true afflictions without complaint. Women give birth in staunch silence, and I am certain if I sewed up wounds without a local, I'd not hear the slightest cry. Oppressed people are used to pain. "Amereeca," they say. "I want go to Amereeca." The nurse wears rubber gloves and catheterizes the man. He is stubborn, and doesn't move a muscle. His urine speeds through the catheter and fills the sample bag. I extract my stethoscope and listen to his breathing. The man is fine; I am certain. "Een Amereeca, I can work very very hard. Dey will give me howse," they say. The thousands of refugees who now live on Guantanamo Bay were found in boats twelve miles off the coast of Haiti. The U.S. Coast Guard would happen upon their often-floundering boats and bring the starving Haitians here -- Guantanamo Bay. At first, the boat people were taken straight to Miami, but once in the continental U.S., the "migrants" had more rights and were harder to extradite. For the same reason, we're not allowed to call our patients refugees; we are to call them migrants. Soon the Guantanamo Bay facility, initially intended for medical traumas only, was expanded as a processing center. Tents were erected on the tarmac and the I.N.S. was imported. Once here, the Haitians spend their days waiting for their I.N.S. interview. Some of the migrants have been here several times, and sell laminated sheets of 'correct" answers to hopeful migrants. Usually, a refugee stays several months before he is interviewed. The I.N.S. often can't keep up with the number that comes in, and sometimes the results from blood tests would take months to come back from Public Health. So, the stranded refugees play soccer or cards all day. Last month, when our Navy soccer team was on the island, they to hold an exhibition soccer game -- show the Haitians how it's really played. The Haitians picked a few of their better players, some of them without shoes. They laughed while they played, and ended up kicking our Annapolis asses. I step outside the tent and take a sip of coffee. The rain still pelts the island. Several migrants are lined up under an awning, waiting their turn to be examined. One man has fallen from a chair in his tent. His ear brushed against the tent pole and was transfixed by a splinter fully a quarter-inch wide. He cups the bloodless wound with his calloused hand and constantly tugs on the nurses sleeve, asking in Creole for assistance. Ahead of him is a teenage girl who has tried to climb the fence and gotten lacerations from the razor-edged Conestoga wire. Three toddlers play in the dirt at her feet. A man pleads with the admissions nurse. He cannot have AIDS, he says. He is not homosexual. I feel bad for the man; he will never make it into the land of plenty. "You'll have to wait," the admissions nurse says to the man with the splinter. He glances into the tent. "WAIT. Unless your life is in danger -- there are others ahead of you." At my old job, I would have thrown fits, but the Haitian people are used to hell. The U.S. sanctions have had no effect on the government; they've only made the poor people poorer. Many have gathered their food from public dumps while their army eats three square meals a day. Political oppression has stripped them of their dignity. They've lived with pain, and learned to put themselves first in order to survive. There's no shame, I've learned, in abandoning moral codes to crawl out of hell. Inside, patient 52792 has fallen asleep. I scan the area for supplies. I find a tray and open an empty, sterile hypodermic needle. Holding it in my right hand, I stand over the sleeping man. I cannot hate him, nor can I blame him for wanting a bit of comfort. America, though, is not what he thinks. I jab the needle into his relaxed thigh muscle. His eyes open wide and he sits up, confused. He looks at me, quickly realizing what he's done. His eyes flutter and he collapses back onto his cot. I stab him again. Again he looks at me, this time with a look of confusion. "I will do it again unless you get up and go," I tell him in English. His feet roll off the cot and onto the floor; his eyes never leave me. He thinks I am a madman. He stands, holding his thigh, and walks out. I motion for the nurse to bring in the next patient. The rain is slowing; the drops are smaller, creating the sound of an unbroken hiss. Copyright 1998, Jim Etchison