Ecuador's Ministry of Health says Jorge Glas received 40 medical attentions in new prison

Guayaquil (Ecuador).- Ecuador's Ministry of Health assured this Saturday that former correista Vice President Jorge Glas has received 40 medical attentions since his arrival at the new maximum security prison on November 10, and that he does not need to be transferred to a hospital as requested by the defense of the former politician through a corrective habeas corpus that is under analysis by a judge. For nearly six hours, officials from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of the Interior, the National Service for Comprehensive Care for Adults Deprived of Liberty (Snai), and the maximum-security prison, located in the coastal province of Santa Elena, sought to disprove the allegations made on Friday by Glas himself, who claimed to suffer from "cruel and degrading treatment," that he is living a "systematic psychological torture," that he does not receive adequate medical care, and that some of his medications have run out. Magistrate Jean Valverde, from the Criminal Judicial Unit of La Libertad, indicated that the decision on whether the former politician leaves prison for admission to a specialized center will be issued this Sunday afternoon.

Jorge Glas's Medical Problems

Fausto Lara, representative of the Ministry of Health, indicated that the 40 medical attentions carried out during a little more than a month were for family medicine, clinical psychology, psychiatry and nursing, and that since the ex-politician returned to prison, in April 2024, he was attended 527 times. For his part, Dr. Heider Retamozo, who works in the prison, pointed out that the last medical attention received by the former vice president was on Friday and that he does not consider that he needs to be transferred to a hospital.

He added that Glas's body mass is "adequate" and that although he has a palliative illness, "he can live his normal life" if he takes care of himself. Also appearing in the proceedings was Dr. Alejandro Barreto, who has been monitoring Glas's health and who presented a medical report that he prepared on December 19th within the framework of the precautionary measures granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the provisional measures issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court).

«Immediate Hospitalization»

In that document, it concludes that the former vice president needs an "immediate, non-deferrable hospitalization in a specialized external center." Barreto indicated that Glas suffers from eighteen illnesses or injuries, including high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, bronchial asthma, chronic sinusitis, post-traumatic stress disorder, and chronic atrophic gastritis, for which he must take at least twenty-one medications each day. He affirmed that the application of so many medications can cause damage to his liver and even ventricular fibrillation, which, he assured, is "highly mortal".

He also said that "it is no use having 500 medical evaluations if the patient does not improve but rather worsens." The former vice president was transferred to the new maximum-security prison, an emblem of President Daniel Noboa, along with leaders of criminal gangs from La Roca prison, where he had been held since 2024, following his arrest in the assault ordered by Noboa on the Mexican Embassy in Quito to forcibly remove him, when he had already received asylum. He was one of the strong men in the government of former President Rafael Correa (2007 – 2017) and he is burdened by three convictions for corruption offenses, the last one, of 13 years in prison, imposed in June for embezzlement (misappropriation of public funds) committed during the reconstruction process of the areas affected by the 2016 earthquake.