CIUDAD JUAREZ – Private clinics in Ciudad Juarez, the scene of a bloody turf war between rival drug cartels, are refusing to treat victims of gunshot wounds due to the risk to their staff and other patients.

Representatives of the clinics told authorities during a meeting that they could no longer receive this type of patients because cartel hit men have occasionally gone to hospitals to finish off a member of a rival drug mob who survived an attack.

Luis Carlos Esquivel, coordinator of Mexico’s State Health Services, told Efe that during Thursday’s meeting it was decided that three strategically located public hospitals will receive individuals wounded by gunfire.

But the proposal must first be presented to the heads of the so-called Joint Operation, which coordinates the roughly 8,000 soldiers and federal police who have been patrolling the city since the start of this year to combat the cartels.

More than 1,400 people have been killed this year in Juarez, a city across the border from El Paso, Texas that is being fought over by the powerful Carrillo Fuentes and Sinaloa drug mobs.

The three public hospitals that would treat the gunshot victims and therefore need increased army and police protection are Hospital General, Hospital Regional 66 and Clinic No. 35.

The meeting, held at Hospital Regional 66, operated by the Social Security Institute, was held amid a climate of escalating violence in which 300 people have been killed thus far in August.

Representatives of the Public Safety Secretariat of Chihuahua state – where Juarez is located – and of federal and local police forces were among those taking part in the meeting.

Ciudad Juarez is one of several hotspots in a raging drug war in Mexico.

Battles among numerous cartels over supply routes to the United States, as well as shootouts between the drug mobs and soldiers and police trying to crack down on their business, have left nearly 15,000 people dead since 2006.

So far this year, according to an unofficial tally published by the El Universal newspaper, more than 4,600 people have died.

Since taking office in December 2006, President Felipe Calderon has deployed more than 50,000 soldiers and 20,000 federal police officers across Mexico in an attempt to crush the drug cartels, but the violence has continued unabated.