Venezuelan Doctors Make a Run for It

[Bacchus4.0]

http://panampost.com/sabrina-martin/2015/10/20/venezuelan-doctors-make-a-run-for-it/



Venezuelan health care is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis,” professor Gustavo Villasmil tells the PanAm Post.+

Villasmil serves as health minister for Miranda State, and is a faculty member at Central Venezuela University. He says former President Hugo Chávez Frías is “responsible for the damage” done to the medical system in the country.+


I would say it’s the worst it’s been since it was first founded in 1936. Basically, there are problems with each of the four pillars: human resources, infrastructure, technology, and medication and supplies logistics.+


Around 20,000 doctors have left Venezuela for better and more interesting job opportunities, namely in the United States, Spain, Colombia, and especially Chile.+

[Fred Sanders]

1. After the Capitalists "made a run for it"! Ah, the good old days of military and oligarth rule!

[Bacchus4.0]

2. Venezuela had the highest standard of living in latin america at one point

and you could actually buy toilet paper in a supermarket. Those were the days.

[Fred Sanders]

4. Of course. For the Capitalists. For the poor, not so much! Revolutions take time to shake out since

the Capitalists and Generals removed will never give up.

For those pining for counter-revolution, it is not going well, is it?

[Bacchus4.0]

5. Nope, poor people could get it too. Its ubiquitous in capitalist Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil

Chile Argentina Panama.

You can get exotic items like chicken, milk, and baby diapers too.

[Al Carroll]

7. Then why are so many Colombians fleeing the country?

Over half a million, fleeing TO Venezuela, where things are far better. There's not the death squads killing and dispossessing Blacks and Natives in huge numbers like Colombia.

[Bacchus4.0]

8. Things are not far better. Most of the Colombians fled the conflict

you can thank the FARC for that. Colombia's economy is actually growing and they have fully stocked supermarkets.

Despite the lack of progress seen in the regional average, five of the 12 countries with available information through 2013 showed declines in poverty as measured by income that exceeded one percentage point per year. The countries that showed the biggest reductions were Paraguay (to 40.7% in 2013 from 49.6% in 2011), followed by El Salvador (to 40.9% in 2013 from 45.3% in 2012), Colombia (to 30.7% in 2013 from 32.9% in 2012), Peru (to 23.9% in 2013 from 25.8% in 2012) and Chile (to 7.8% in 2013 from 10.9% in 2011).

http://www.cepal.org/en/comunicados/se-estanca-la-reduccion-de-la-pobreza-y-la-indigencia-en-la-mayoria-de-paises-de-america

Venezuela has some of the world's largest proven oil deposits as well as huge quantities of coal, iron ore, bauxite and gold.

Yet most Venezuelans live in poverty, many of them in shanty towns, some of which sprawl over the hillsides around the capital, Caracas.

Venezuela's economic fortunes are tied to world oil prices. A 1970s boom largely benefited the middle classes, but a subsequent price collapse condemned many of this class to poverty while eroding the living standards of the already impoverished.
Image caption National hero Simon Bolivar led several Latin American countries to independence from Spain
Unemployment is high and, according to official figures, around 60% of households are poor.

[Marksman_91]

11. Stop it, Bacchus! Don't you know that FACTS are not welcome here?

Unless you have a favorable opinion of the Chavista government, you're nothing more than a dang dirty right-wing capitalist!

for the humor-impaired

[SereneG]

3. Revolt

Venezuelans should revolt against Maduro the useless sack of ape puke. Their grocery shelves are empty, worthless Bolivar - especially when Maduro keeps printing..

[Bacchus4.0]

10. We will see what happens Dec 6 which is the scheduled election for the legislature nt

[Al Carroll]

6. There NEVER were enough doctors or healthcare in Venezuela

It's healthcare has greatly IMPROVED since the Bolivarians. Every indicator has Venezuelans living longer and healthier. That's from public healthcare, often provided by Cuban doctors and nurses.

Capital flight by elites shouldn't be surprising. That's been going on a long time.

[Bacchus4.0]

9. Venezuela’s Health Care Crisis

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/29/venezuelas-health-care-crisis

---------------------

Venezuela’s health care system, long a source of pride for the government, is in deep crisis. Thousands of patients cannot get essential medical treatments, and thousands more have been wait-listed for potentially life-saving surgery because doctors don’t have the materials they need to operate.

The government has been trying to deflect blame, going after directors from a leading pharmacy chain and detaining and questioning doctors who have criticized the shortages. But the government itself has failed to ensure that essential medicines and medical supplies are available in the health care system, while its currency exchange restrictions and price controls interfere with the ability of pharmaceutical companies to sell them. The crash of oil prices, a key source of revenue for the country, has dramatically worsened an already bad situation.

On recent visits to Venezuela, Human Rights Watch found shortages of medications to treat pain, asthma, hypertension, diabetes and heart diseases, among others. Syringes, gauze and needles were in short supply, and even basic lab tests couldn’t be performed.

In March, Doctors for Health, a network of medical residents working in public hospitals all over the country, reported results from a survey of 130 public hospitals in 19 states that found that 44 percent of operating rooms were not operational and 94 percent of labs didn’t have the materials they needed to operate properly. They also found that 60 percent of routinely stocked medicines or medical supplies were entirely or partially unavailable in the hospitals, and that a majority of medicines included in the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines were not available in pharmacies.

[COLGATE4]

12. Oh Christ! There you go again with the facts! Always

the FACTS!! Don't you understand that it's our BELIEF that Archangel Hugo Chavez Frias inherited a country deep in economic shambles with scarcity of items of basic necessity and, in a short 15 years transformed it into a Latin American Utopia? Of course, his fine-tuning the health system (with the help of his little Cuban friends) may have resulted in some unfortunate shortages but, you can't make a revolution without breaking balls.

[Bacchus4.0]

13. I just can't help it! Venezuela is a colony of Cuba. That's what Hugo's legacy is nt

[COLGATE4]

14. The resemblance is uncanny. Little by little a prosperous, dynamic country has

transformed itself into what is essentially an economic basket case - Cuba II. And they can't even blame it on the embargo!