Doctors Say Venezuela's Health Care in Collapse

[Bacchus4.0]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/doctors-venezuelas-health-care-collapse-20798932


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Driving the crisis in health care are the same forces that have left Venezuelans scrambling to find toilet paper, milk and automobile parts. Economists blame government mismanagement and currency controls set by the late President Hugo Chavez for inflation pushing 50 percent annually. The government controls the dollars needed to buy medical supplies and has simply not made enough available.


Doctors not allied with the government say many patients began dying from easily treatable illnesses when Venezuela's downward economic slide accelerated after Chavez's death from cancer in March. Doctors say it's impossible to know how many have died, and the government doesn't keep such numbers, just as it hasn't published health statistics since 2010.

Almost everything needed to mend and heal is in critically short supply: needles, syringes and paraffin used in biopsies to diagnose cancer; drugs to treat it; operating room equipment; X-ray film and imaging paper; blood and the reagents needed so it can be used for transfusions.

Last month, the government suspended organ donations and transplants. At least 70 percent of radiotherapy machines, precisely what Gonzalez will need once her tumor is removed, are now inoperable in a country with 19,000 cancer patients — meaning fewer than 5,000 can be treated, said Dr. Douglas Natera, president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation.

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Viva chavismo!!!

[MADem]

1. Hurrah for more mierda from Maduro!

Gee, is this a huge American conspiracy, too? We bribed the techs to not do maintenance on the radiotherapy machines? We hypnotized the government so they'd stop collecting health statistics? All fo the medical supplies are hidden away with the toilet paper and arepa flour?

I think this country is gonna crash and burn sooner than I thought....

[Bacchus4.0]

2. and they still haven't been able to find the 99th vote for Maduro to be a dictator

Assuming that Maduro doesn't "resign" soon, look for chavistas to expel at least 2 opposition deputies so that they have the 2/3 majority, or use some wierd gimmick to declare 98 votes is close enough.

but yeah, I think 2014 isn't going to be a good year in Venezuela.

[Bacchus4.0]

3. Venezuela's Health System Verges On Collapse As Hospitals Run Short On Supplies

http://www.medicaldaily.com/venezuelas-health-system-verges-collapse-hospitals-run-short-supplies-262145

Facing drastic shortages of medical supplies, Venezuela's healthcare system continues to triage patients on an emergency basis.
As Venezuela reels in political and economic crisis, hospitals continue to send sick patients home from a medical system on the brink of collapse.

At Central Hospital in Maracay, doctors last month discharged some 300 cancer patients when medical supply shortages forced triage, leaving most non-emergency patients — the long-term sick — without any treatment. Among them, 37-year-old Evelina Gonzalez might be considered one of the luckier ones whose desperate plight guarantees her a chance to continue waiting for cancer surgery initially scheduled for July, the Associated Press reports.

“I feel like I’ve been abandoned,” Gonzalez told a psychologist at the hospital, her right eye swollen with glaucoma diagnosed two years ago but left untreated. Following chemotherapy for breast cancer, she began a daunting journey through the local health care system, transferring from hospital to hospital. At her latest destination, she’s on a waiting list with 31 breast cancer patients awaiting surgery.


Central Hospital in Marcay last month sent 300 cancer patients home, reserving medical treatment for only emergency cases.
Doctors in Venezuela say no government healthcare statistics have been collected since 2010, although they know for sure they’re lacking medical supplies across the gamut: needles, syringes, paraffin used in biopsies for cancer diagnostics, X-ray film, imaging paper, and so forth.

[Bacchus4.0]

4. The Ven. Health Minister has just been replaced

http://www.vtv.gob.ve/articulos/2013/11/06/francisco-armada-designado-ministro-para-la-salud-9218.html