Venezuelans make taxing trek to seek health care in Colombia

[Bacchus4.0]

Six months after Venezuela shut its border with Colombia to fight smuggling, thousands of patients must struggle with officialdom and trek on foot to seek treatment in Colombian hospitals, so they can avoid their own country's collapsed medical system

URENA, Venezuela (AP) — They gather by the hundreds at border bridges before dawn, in wheelchairs and surgical masks. They clutch X-rays and bundles of medical records they hope will persuade Venezuelan officials to let them join the few allowed to cross into Colombia each day.

Six months after Venezuela's socialist government shut its border with Colombia to fight smuggling, thousands of patients continue to make an arduous trek to get treatment in Colombian hospitals.

The closure has reshaped daily life for everyone along the frontier, but for sick Venezuelans hoping to escape their country's collapsed medical system, the consequences have been painful and sometimes deadly.
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Perhaps the only thing worse than slogging to a clinic in Colombia is slogging through the Venezuelan health care system, which is beset by the economic chaos ravaging the country as a whole. Public hospitals here no longer have consistent running water and electricity, and medical supplies are scarce. The country is making due with 20 percent of the medications it requires, according to the opposition-leaning pharmaceutical association.

http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2016-03-09/venezuelans-make-taxing-trek-to-seek-health-care-in-colombia?page=2

[DetlefK]

1. Does Maduro have some kind of long-term plan how to fix this?

Or is his plan to keep everything as is until the crisis eventually goes away?

[Bacchus4.0]

2. I think his plan is to remain in power no matter what happens to the country nt