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News: Venezuela in hospital crisis
Member Since: 5/10/2012
Posts: 10,996
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Venezuela in hospital crisis
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BARCELONA, Venezuela — By morning, three newborns were already dead.
The day had begun with the usual hazards: chronic shortages of antibiotics, intravenous solutions, even food. Then a blackout swept over the city, shutting down the respirators in the maternity ward.
Doctors kept ailing infants alive by pumping air into their lungs by hand for hours. By nightfall, four more newborns had died.
“The death of a baby is our daily bread,” said Dr. Osleidy Camejo, a surgeon in the nation’s capital, Caracas, referring to the toll from Venezuela’s collapsing hospitals.
The economic crisis in this country has exploded into a public health emergency, claiming the lives of untold numbers of Venezuelans. It is just part of a larger unraveling here that has become so severe it has prompted President Nicolás Maduro to impose a state of emergency and has raised fears of a government collapse.
Hospital wards have become crucibles where the forces tearing Venezuela apart have converged. Gloves and soap have vanished from some hospitals. Often, cancer medicines are found only on the black market. There is so little electricity that the government works only two days a week to save what energy is left.
At the University of the Andes Hospital in the mountain city of Mérida, there was not enough water to wash blood from the operating table. Doctors preparing for surgery cleaned their hands with bottles of seltzer water.
“It is like something from the 19th century,” said Dr. Christian Pino, a surgeon at the hospital.
The figures are devastating. The rate of death among babies under a month old increased more than a hundredfold in public hospitals run by the Health Ministry, to just over 2 percent in 2015 from 0.02 percent in 2012, according to a government report provided by lawmakers.
The rate of death among new mothers in those hospitals increased by almost five times in the same period, according to the report.
Here in the Caribbean port town of Barcelona, two premature infants died recently on the way to the main public clinic because the ambulance had no oxygen tanks. The hospital has no fully functioning X-ray or kidney dialysis machines because they broke long ago. And because there are no open beds, some patients lie on the floor in pools of their blood.
It is a battlefield clinic in a country where there is no war.
“Some come here healthy, and they leave dead,” Dr. Leandro Pérez said, standing in the emergency room of Luis Razetti Hospital, which serves the town.
This nation has the largest oil reserves in the world, yet the government saved little money for hard times when oil prices were high. Now that prices have collapsed — they are around a third what they were in 2014 — the consequences are casting a destructive shadow across the country. Lines for food, long a feature of life in Venezuela, now erupt into looting. The bolívar, the country’s currency, is nearly worthless.
The crisis is aggravated by a political feud between Venezuela’s leftists, who control the presidency, and their rivals in congress. The president’s opponents declared a humanitarian crisis in January, and this month passed a law that would allow Venezuela to accept international aid to prop up the health care system.
“This is criminal that we can sit in a country with this much oil, and people are dying for lack of antibiotics,” says Oneida Guaipe, a lawmaker and former hospital union leader.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/wo...hospitals.html
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Member Since: 6/24/2012
Posts: 24,708
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I've had patients dying because they couldn't find their antibiotics to treat some infections. Everything stated in the article is truth and some countries have offered international help by sending medicines and Maduro dared to reject them as if Venezuela was producing medicine to treat ill people. 
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 59,202
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Oh my word 
This is saddening and horrible to read 
Why can't or won't people help them? Or are we already?
I'm not sure what's going on over there that has lead to this. I just know it's in a really bad shape.
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Member Since: 6/24/2012
Posts: 24,708
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HIV+ patients are also with one month of their medicine in stock. The government was committed to give them their treatment once a month for free to diagnosed patients that were being checked by doctors and now they don't know what they're going to do after June.
Some of them have already passed because their treatment is no longer in stock.
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Member Since: 6/24/2012
Posts: 24,708
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Quote:
Originally posted by SorryI'mLuke
Oh my word
This is saddening and horrible to read
Why can't or won't people help them? Or are we already?
I'm not sure what's going on over there that has lead to this. I just know it's in a really bad shape. |
European countries and international organizations have already offered their help and our smart president rejected it.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 59,202
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Quote:
Originally posted by abrahamjmr
European countries and international organizations have already offered their help and our smart president rejected it. |
Oh.. Why would he do such a thing?
Also, is this what has caused the country to become so bad?
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The crisis is aggravated by a political feud between Venezuela’s leftists, who control the presidency, and their rivals in congress.
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How exactly did this happen?
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Member Since: 2/22/2008
Posts: 46,108
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I can't even read this without being angered. Our situation is precarious and things here go on like nothing is happening on a daily basis. People get killed, there's no power, no food, no water, no money, no jobs, there's riots pretty much everyday and nothing gets media coverage.
As I'm writing this I'm getting teary-eyed because I recently had an uncle who died because of lack of certain medicine. It is just mind-bogging to me how we can continue living this way here, and everyday it keeps getting worst. Every time we hit new lows I just think it can't get worst, but then it does.
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Member Since: 5/10/2012
Posts: 10,996
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Quote:
Originally posted by abrahamjmr
I've had patients dying because they couldn't find their antibiotics to treat some infections. Everything stated in the article is truth and some countries have offered international help by sending medicines and Maduro dared to reject them as if Venezuela was producing medicine to treat ill people. |
Quote:
Originally posted by abrahamjmr
HIV+ patients are also with one month of their medicine in stock. The government was committed to give them their treatment once a month for free to diagnosed patients that were being checked by doctors and now they don't know what they're going to do after June.
Some of them have already passed because their treatment is no longer in stock. |
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Originally posted by KarlosVzla
I can't even read this without being angered. Our situation is precarious and things here go on like nothing is happening on a daily basis. People get killed, there's no power, no food, no water, no money, no jobs, there's riots pretty much everyday and nothing gets media coverage.
As I'm writing this I'm getting teary-eyed because I recently had an uncle who died because of lack of certain medicine. It is just mind-bogging to me how we can continue living this way here, and everyday it keeps getting worst. Every time we hit new lows I just think it can't get worst, but then it does.
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That's ****ing disgraceful
I don't know what can be done as this just seems to be getting worse by the day, but just stay safe sistrens
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Member Since: 7/9/2010
Posts: 31,471
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Terrible I feel horrible for the citizens who have to go through that
That's why a family friend's mother who lives there decided to go to Colombia for them to take care of her. But apparently none of the doctors/nurses even cared to help her, and our family friend had to act a lunatic to talk to the manager to get assistance. Latin America right now <
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Member Since: 6/24/2012
Posts: 24,708
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Quote:
Originally posted by SorryI'mLuke
Oh.. Why would he do such a thing?
Also, is this what has caused the country to become so bad?
How exactly did this happen? |
People got over leftists, even those who used to support Chavez back when he was alive. Mostly because Maduro doesn't stand a chance as president, he doesn't know anything about economics and the ministers he's been giving politic roles don't either. Most of them military.
He's rejected the international help because on his mind he thinks Venezuela is a country where happiness reigns and there are no problems. We struggle to find basic products every day, delinquency rates are high to the point people can't go out at night without fearing to be kidnap, stolen or killed.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 23,374
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This isn't getting any press, I had no idea things were so bad in Venezuela.
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Member Since: 6/24/2012
Posts: 24,708
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Quote:
Originally posted by KarlosVzla
I can't even read this without being angered. Our situation is precarious and things here go on like nothing is happening on a daily basis. People get killed, there's no power, no food, no water, no money, no jobs, there's riots pretty much everyday and nothing gets media coverage.
As I'm writing this I'm getting teary-eyed because I recently had an uncle who died because of lack of certain medicine. It is just mind-bogging to me how we can continue living this way here, and everyday it keeps getting worst. Every time we hit new lows I just think it can't get worst, but then it does.
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I'm so sorry. It saddens me to read about your uncle. Worse thing about, nothing can't be done unless medicines start to get in the country. 
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Member Since: 1/28/2009
Posts: 20,640
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 3,830
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This is a prime example of what socialism leads to.
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Member Since: 2/22/2008
Posts: 46,108
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Quote:
Originally posted by Badger
This isn't getting any press, I had no idea things were so bad in Venezuela.
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To mention just a few things: we don't have food in here, like you would have to go on a line for hours and hours and hours to get 1 of each basic product (milk, sugar, rice, pasta), that's if you find any. If you don't, you have to buy it from re-sellers who get up at midnight and go make lines at the supermarket, they sell things pretty much 5 times the price it actually costs.
There's not any real good jobs either and most jobs only pay minimum wage. Minimum wage is at 15.000 bolivares, the basic food basket is at +150.000 Bolivares.
Crime rate is off the roof, as stated before, you can't really go out at night without risking getting robbed, killed, kidnapped. I was robbed last year walking at 7 pm in a crowded ****ing street.
We have blackouts every single day, they last 4 hours. So add to that list power shortage.
We don't have any medicine, you have to go on an adventure hunting to find basic medicine. There's even power shortage sin hospitals and clinics and people day on a daily basis because of this.
Also, no water. They cut water distribution and we only get it once a week, so people just survive by storing it in tanks.
No media coverage of any of these issues. Watch Maduro speak and you will think this is the best country in the world.
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Member Since: 2/22/2008
Posts: 46,108
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Quote:
Originally posted by abrahamjmr
I'm so sorry. It saddens me to read about your uncle. Worse thing about, nothing can't be done unless medicines start to get in the country. |
Thanks 
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Member Since: 6/24/2012
Posts: 24,708
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Quote:
Originally posted by KarlosVzla
To mention just a few things: we don't have food in here, like you would have to go on a line for hours and hours and hours to get 1 of each basic product (milk, sugar, rice, pasta), that's if you find any. If you don't, you have to buy it from re-sellers who get up at midnight and go make lines at the supermarket, they sell things pretty much 5 times the price it actually costs.
There's not any real good jobs either and most jobs only pay minimum wage. Minimum wage is at 15.000 bolivares, the basic food basket is at +150.000 Bolivares.
Crime rate is off the roof, as stated before, you can't really go out at night without risking getting robbed, killed, kidnapped. I was robbed last year walking at 7 pm in a crowded ****ing street.
The have blackouts every single day, they last 4 hours. So add to that list power shortage.
We don't have any medicine, you have to go on an adventure hunting to find basic medicine. There's even power shortage sin hospitals and clinics and people day on a daily basis because of this.
Also, no water. The cut water distribution and we only get it once a week, so people just survive by storing it in tanks.
No media coverage of any of these issues. Watch Maduro speak and you will think this is the best country in the world.
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And people who have a great job risk their lives every day as well. A kid was recently kidnapped with his mother because the thieves thought his father had plenty of money because he works as a bank manager in my state. It turns out the man only has a great car and he lives a very normal life, he doesn't have a great salary. Apparently, the government contributed on getting the kid and his mother back to their houses. Other theories state the government, which is ruled by pranes, thieves that were convicted to jail, are kidnapping people to get more money.
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 2,318
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Quote:
Originally posted by KarlosVzla
To mention just a few things....
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omg, sounds awful.
I hope things get better.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 59,202
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Oh god, reading yours posts is shocking.
Why is media not reporting this?
I'm going to tweet BBC about this
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Member Since: 8/31/2013
Posts: 6,634
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Omg.
The first picture is screaming HAI
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