How the Maduro Regime Hides the Collapse of Healthcare from a UN Mission [View all]

[MRubio]

The technical mission sent by UN Human Rights Commissioner and former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, didn’t inspect the terrible conditions of Antonio María Pineda Central Hospital in Barquisimeto.

The UN commission stuck exclusively to the agenda imposed by the Maduro regime. On March 17th, they were taken by officials from the dictatorship to the Autonomous Service of Pharmaceutical Development (SEFAR) and to the Pastor Oropeza Hospital of the Institute of Social Security, in the Alí Primera social housing project. While there are private healthcare centers or managed by institutions such as the Red Cross, the aforementioned centers are all managed by the central state.

The patients and healthcare professionals of the Antonio María Pineda Hospital were hoping that the mission would visit the city’s most important public hospital, since they had received three containers with medicines, medical supplies, cleaning products and air conditioners from the Health Ministry; maintenance staff was cleaning the main areas, while others worked on fixing the elevators, replacing light bulbs and painting some walls, something unusual in the Venezuelan healthcare system nowadays. Even security in the facilities was reinforced.

While these cosmetic operations were taking place, outside the hospitals, the patients’ relatives offered heartbreaking testimonies about the service’s true conditions, worsened by the blackout that lasted over five days in Barquisimeto, leaving a severe water crisis. “It’s been a week of many calamities,” said a patient in the maternity area who chose to remain anonymous. “We can catch an infection, there’s blood on the floor, the restrooms are filthy. My baby’s also a patient in the hospital but the pediatric wing is a bit cleaner.”

Julimar Heredia, the relative of a hospitalized patient, said: “They’re patching all the holes and everything’s impeccable so they can say that everything’s fine, that there’s no lack of medicines, even when everything’s horrible. We’re worse every day and they deny it.” Julio Aguirre’s wife entered the obstetric emergency for a c-section on March 13th. “They told us to bring absolutely everything: three cold packs, eight pairs of gloves, a small hook used for newborn babies, four bags of saline solution and 26 litres of water. I spent Bs. 173,000 the first day alone. Now that an inspection’s coming, they’re throwing a bunch of smokescreens, but just yesterday, there was a puddle of urine in front of the elevator.”

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/03/19/how-the-maduro-regime-hides-the-collapse-of-healthcare-from-a-un-mission/

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And here's an interesting story that hits really close to home.

Stepson just left here for Maturin yesterday after 3 days in Caracas. He's handling the affairs of a foundation founded by his sister to help infants and young children. She's in Madrid with her young daughter getting life-saving surgery for the child that they could not get here in Venezuela. She'll be there for at least year though mom's afraid they may never return.

Anyway, a Venezuelan citizen from New York recently donated 1200 kilos of high-protein baby formula to the foundation for distribution to hospitals in Maturin. That's where the foundation is based. The shipment was stopped in Caracas by the National Guard because of "problems". Of course, leaving 30% of the shipment with them and the problem would go away. Stepson refused, contacted the donor in New York, and they finally worked out a deal with the National Guard to donate the 30% to hospitals in Caracas. The donor, being from Caracas originally, named the hospitals to receive the milk. One on the list was a government-run operation named J.M. de Los Rios.

When the stepson arrived and made contact with a hospital representative, he was told they not only wouldn't accept the donation, according to the contact, they couldn't because he said there were armed colectivos inside the place watching all of the hospital's employees and activities. Inside the hospital, stepson saw heavily armed men and woman dressed in civilian clothes. He didn't speak to any of them to confirm that they were colectivos, but hey, if it walks like a duck. This was all going down at the same time that the UN delegation mentioned in the linked story was in Venezuela.

The remainder of the shipment still hasn't made it to Maturin and when it does, it'll be interesting to see if the government-run hospitals there accept it. We have our fingers crossed. They need it.