VenEconomy: The Stuff Being Swept under the Carpet of Socialist Venezuela

From the Editors of VenEconomy

It can be said that the two governments of the "Socialist Homeland" resemble a carpet under which is being swept all the failure of these past 16 years of "beautiful revolution" that has plunged Venezuela into a "sea of happiness."

These two governments have swept the real figures of unemployment and uncontrollable inflation under this carpet as well after changing all the traditional measurement methodologies. They have been concealing the performance of the national economy, the figures related to the production and exports of crude oil or making invisible the several cases of corruption already exposed at international level. This carpet currently hides underneath serious problems such as severe shortages of basic foodstuffs along with various rationing mechanisms. Right underneath can also be found the real crime figures, or the reality of the human rights violations or the criminal cases of a fair amount of political prisoners, with the State taking false arguments about alleged assassination plots and coup attempts to the international community as an excuse for the number of trials and incarcerations of political leaders from the opposition and civilians.

These masking tactics, and the nearly extinction of Venezuela’s independent media, have served to sweeten up thousands of Venezuelans who still don’t seem to understand the gravity of the crisis in all aspects of national life. What’s more, that complicit carpet plus generous handouts, is still making the international left wing sell the alleged benefits of a political regime that touts itself as being partisan and defender of the poor.

But what is already impossible to sweep under that Bolivarian carpet is the general and criminal collapse of the healthcare sector.

The dramatic failure of 16 years of anti-policies in this area is being evidenced in every healthcare center, either private or public, and its impact reaches millions of Venezuelans, patients and their families.

The alerts issued by healthcare sector associations are almost unanimous, as they call for a national emergency to be declared so drastic corrective measures start to be taken.

An overview of the crisis is in a survey conducted by the healthcare network Red Médicos por la Salud, comprised of resident physicians across the national territory, which assessed the shortages and crisis situation in 198 of the 240 existing healthcare centers in Venezuela. This survey was released on March 10 and published by El Nacional, among other local printed media.

The survey showed, among other data, that almost half of the operating rooms of the country are out of order. "Operating rooms are unusable in at least 87 public hospitals across 19 states of the country; the failure reaches 44% of the medical centers. Lab tests cannot be performed in 186 of them, because the units are not providing the corresponding services. Only 28 healthcare centers are available for patients to perform x-ray tests." "About 94% of CT scan services performed in the country are not working or have failures, while shortages of medicines in these healthcare centers stand at 67%."

But the drama of the situation was evidenced by statements of several Venezuelan oncologists to the Associated Press (AP) on Tuesday. These specialists pointed out that radical mastectomies have increased, because the "shortages of supplies do not allow the monitoring of less invasive procedures with radiation therapy in public hospitals."

They told AP that "we are being forced to return to outdated treatments because the economic problems in the socialist nation make it impossible for us to properly operate the radiation machines in public hospitals, where patients receive free treatment under Venezuela’s universal healthcare law."

And they also revealed that in Venezuela is being practiced the same medical techniques as in the 1940s. A 75-year regression in a country that could boast about having one of the most advanced healthcare infrastructures in the hemisphere 25 years ago. A failure that can no longer be swept under the carpet of the Socialist Homeland.

VenEconomy has been a leading provider of consultancy on financial, political and economic data in Venezuela since 1982.