Cuba said today that 26 patients in Havana"s main mental hospital had died due to frigid weather and other factors in the past week, and said those responsible would be put on trial, according to dpa. The statement, read on state-run television, followed a Thursday report by the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights saying that two dozen patients at the Psychiatric Hospital of Havana had died of hypothermia due to negligence during an unusual extended cold snap on the tropical island. The government said the deaths were "linked to the prolonged low temperatures that reached 3.6 degrees C (38 degrees F) ... and to risk factors peculiar to mentally ill patients and to natural biological deterioration."
