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Brazil, Colombia, Guyana border towns overwhelmed by Venezuelans in need of medical care

Sabrina Martín at Panampost writes,
Venezuela’s Medicine Shortages Overwhelming Border Cities in Guyana, Colombia, Brazil. The ongoing problem is getting worse,

Venezuela’s political crisis has bled into widespread food and medical shortages for some time now, causing families to travel to neighboring countries such as Colombia in search of basic healthcare and vaccines for children.

If you were wondering about the thousands of Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela under the Barrio Adentro oil-for-doctors program, last January the Miami Herald reported, Dumping medicine, faking patients: Cuban doctors describe a system that breeds fraud

“I worked for three and a half years as a dentist in Venezuela, and it was horrible dealing with the statistics,” said Rodríguez, who defected from the program late last year and is in Colombia awaiting a U.S. visa. “I might see five patients a day, but I had to say I’d seen 18, and then throw all that medicine away, because we simply had to.”

Trashing medicine in a country where it’s desperately needed was painful, doctors said. But if they were caught giving it away — or even worse, selling it — they would be kicked out of the mission and sent back to Cuba. And regular audits of their supplies meant they needed them to match their patient count.

There’s a lot of money involved (emphasis added),

“You have to understand that Venezuela pays Cuba based on statistics, not based on what’s really happening in the clinics,” he explained.
. . .
Dentists are particularly under the gun because Venezuela pays for their services in cash, as opposed to crude, workers said.

Communism does not work.

In other news,

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Venezuela: Cuban doctors stuck in limbo, as the country collapses

Francisco Toro of Caracas Chronicles calls it

the sprawling state-sponsored human trafficking ring known as Barrio Adentro

Barrio Adentro was the Cuban-doctors-for-Venezuelan-oil scheme Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro cooked up,

Governments pay the communist island for the doctors, making them an important source of revenue. And perhaps nowhere is the program more vital than in Venezuela, which in 2003 established the “Barrio Adentro” program — free healthcare centers staffed by Cubans.

In exchange, Venezuela sends crude oil and cash back to Cuba. During 2003-13 the state-run PDVSA oil company pumped $22.4 billion dollars into the program. Venezuela Health Minister Francisco Armada told state-run VTV television there are more than 10,000 Cuban health professionals in Venezuela

Not surprisingly (and as reported earlier)

The working conditions are those of slave labor:

Several Cuban defectors interviewed in Bogota said that they fled not only because of oppression in their own nation, but also because of unreasonably poor and demanding work conditions in Venezuela. Andres said that he could not stand the conditions in Venezuela, where he lived in a crowded house with a leaky straw roof which he shared with fifteen other Cuban doctors waiting to be put to work.
…
The doctors also said that in Venezuela, Cuban minders monitored their movements, prohibiting non-work contact with Venezuelans. When not at work, the Cubans were required to be at home after 6 pm. One couple said that after they pointed out some problems with the programme, officials threatened to send them back to Cuba in retaliation.

The doctors who risked their lives to leave Venezuela and crossed the border into Colombia are now facing delays after applying for asylum in the U.S.

What about the money they are due from the Cuban government for their work in Venezuela? Forgddabouit!

Internacionalistas are given modest stipends but the bulk of their salary is held in Cuba. When they’re sent home early — as he was being threatened with — they’re denied even those modest savings. Without that money, there was nothing to go home to, he said.

If you’re wondering why the internacionalistas don’t want to stay in Colombia, read Miguel Octavio’s post on Venezuela And Colombia: A Joint Future.

Related:
Bloomberg News editorial board:
If Venezuela Implodes, Will Its Neighbors Be Ready?

Perhaps you’re aware that Venezuela has the world’s highest inflation rate, a collapsing currency and every prospect of defaulting on its debts next year. You may have read about shortages of consumer goods (everything from milk and bread to beer and condoms), and the effort required to obtain hard currency (kidnapping purebred dogs to sell in Brazil is one way).

Here are some things you might have missed. In the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, transplant patients have resorted to veterinary medicines to stay alive. Coagulants for treating hemophilia are available only for emergencies. Medicines of every kind are getting hard to find outside the cities. Malaria and dengue fever are on the rise; so is malnutrition, although the government stopped publishing weekly epidemiological bulletins last November and denies that thousands of doctors are resigning and emigrating.

Every day, Venezuelans form lines at stores that are almost bare. On July 31, a man was killed and several dozen people arrested in the city of San Felix as angry shoppers looted grocery stores and attacked state-owned vehicles. The potential for more frequent and deadlier breakdowns in public order is plain, especially now that Maduro has stepped up military raids on “hoarders” who amass “contraband” goods.

Venezuela’s currency is now so worthless that people are using it as napkins

As for the upcoming December 6 elections, I fully agree with Bloomberg:

Venezuelans pinning their hopes on December’s parliamentary elections will likely be disappointed. Leading opposition politicians have been jailed or disqualified from running. Maduro has promisedto exclude election monitors from the European Union or the Organization of American States. He has said he’ll refuse to accept the ruling party’s defeat.

Let me spell it out for you: December 6th is the anniversary of the date Hugo Chavez was first elected president. The regime won’t let go.



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