Venezuelans can’t get even the most basic lifesaving medical supplies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/29/venezuelans-cant-get-even-the-most-basic-lifesaving-medical-supplies/

Chavistas must be proud.


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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.

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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.

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At the end of 2014, public hospitals were wait-listing approximately 20,000 patients for surgery, including 4,000 at the University Hospital of Caracas, according to Doctors for Health. In January, after more than 10 patients waiting for surgery reportedly died there, the hospital closed its cardiology unit and sent the remaining patients home. The unit briefly reopened in February after media coverage of the deaths led health authorities to provide some new supplies of medications, doctors told us. But it closed again two weeks later.