Venezuela Wins Hearts and Minds with Free Eye Care

[Joanne98]

By: John Otis - Houston Chronicle

O CUMARE DEL TUY, VENEZUELA - Blind in his left eye from a cataract, Celestino Granados was stumbling through his twilight years in El Salvador when Hugo Chavez changed his life.

Chavez's government paid to fly Granados and about 110 other Salvadorans to Venezuela where, free of charge, their cataracts were removed and other eye ailments were corrected by government-employed physicians. Now, Granados has his vision back, and Venezuela's socialist president has another group of fervent admirers in the Central American nation.

"I see perfectly. I can even see the color of your eyes," said a tearful Granados, 73, a few days after his operation. "This is the best government Venezuela could have."

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=2072

[Cha]

1. Interesting!~

"Cataracts widespread

Venezuela's eye program began by accident.

Three years ago, the Chavez government launched a campaign to wipe out illiteracy only to realize that many elderly participants had trouble reading because of problems with their vision.

A 2004 survey concluded that more than half of all blind people in Venezuela, about 63,000, suffered from cataracts, a clouding of the eye's lens that can be corrected through surgery.

Another widespread malady in the country is pterygium, a fibrous membrane that gradually covers the eye.

Both ailments are thought to be caused, in part, by exposure to sunlight and are common among poor people in tropical climates who spend long periods working outdoors.

But many public hospitals in Latin America lack ophthalmologists, microscopes and surgical instruments. At private clinics, cataract surgery can cost $1,500.

Thus, many poor people never receive treatment, said Hernandez."

[Judi Lynn]

2. Glad to see this article got published in the States. Followed the link to the Houston Chronicle,

found the same article, but with this photo:



Sporting free T-shirts, Sebastiana Chavez, second
row, and others are bused to an eye clinic for a
post-operation checkup. Venezuelan ophthalmologists
have operated on thousands from 18 countries who
either could not afford or had no access to eye surgery.
DAVID ROCHKIND PHOTOS: FOR THE CHRONICLE

It really is so right-wing, isn't it, for the idiot oligarchy to attack these treatments as being "political?" Sure they're political, unless the Venezuelan government went to the trouble to arrange these things anonymously for the eye patients.

If that happened, they wouldn't understand the process, and how they came to get their vision back. How stunningly stupid.

The Venezuelan oligarchy HAD its chance all those long years, going back 200 years or more, to take a different path in its treatment of the poor from whom they derive their great wealth. They chose not to bother themselves with sharing. SCREW THEM.

In the meantime, time marches on, and these people are going to get a measure of well-being back they thought they had lost. You have to be a spectacular right-winger to begrudge that.

Thanks again, Joanne98, for a great bit of news.