Doctors in uber-violent Venezuela marked for death if their patients die. 22,000 MD's flee
Doctors in violent Venezuela work under threat of death if patients die
BY ANTONIO MARIA DELGADO
Updated March 29, 2018 03:57 PM
Junior Rodríguez is used to seeing death and violence up close because he's a doctor in a public hospital in Venezuela, one of the world's most dangerous countries.
But the violence has been turning more personal for Rodríguez and the rest of the medical staff at the Dr. Luis Razetti de Barcelona University Hospital in the eastern state of Anzoátegui.
The staffers work under constant death threats made by relatives or friends of patients — some of them dangerous gang members — if the patients die.
“Most of the time that's the doctor's worst fear, that the patient dies and the relatives take it out on him,” Rodriguez said in a telephone interview. “The threat of harm if the patient dies is always there. We don't have any kind of protection. You treat a person who turns out to be a criminal, and if that person decides to point a gun at you, there's nothing you can do.”
Rodríguez quit the hospital months ago and wants to leave Venezuela to escape the crime and economic implosion that has brought widespread hunger to the oil-producing country. He would join the 22,000 other doctors who have fled, according to figures from the Venezuelan Medical Federation (VMF).
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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article207281029.html