Greetings, Everyone

If you like/defend Socialism/Communism a la venezolana, but you have never lived in Venezuela for more than a couple of days and have never been treated as an average patient in any of our socialist hospitals, you cannot and should not talk about how advanced socialist ideas are and how good it is that there are socialist countries in the world countering the terrible capitalist ideologies of the developed countries.

You have no idea how detrimental socialist ideas have been to the Venezuelan people. The only equality they have been able to effectively implement is that of poverty for the masses, while the leaders bathe in excesses and luxuries. You have no idea how deep they have buried our dignity until they made us feel equally dispossessed, equally helpless, equally dependent of a corrupt an inefficient State.

On Thursday and Friday I accompanied my mother-in-law to the hospital, the one relatively decent left in Cumaná. The main Hospital (Antonio Patricio de Alcalá) has become a disgusting pigs' den that has been under repairs for years (and nothing ever gets fixed or finished), overcrowded and understaffed, contaminated in all ways possible, lacking in any way imaginable of the most fundamental supplies.

This is the Dr. Julio Rodriguez Hospital, better known among locals as Los Veteranos. Even though, all kinds of services are provided here, this place still holds mostly chronic diabetic and tuberculosis patients.

In this video you can see the entrance and surrounding areas. On thursday, all that vegetation along the seawage ditch was burnt (something that I learned is done very frequently). Imagine the effect of a thick smoke cloud in a place crowded with patients suffering respiratory diseases.

Now, you may wonder, why does the government allow such an aberration to happen? The short answer may be because there is no government for this kinds of things. In a militarized State, where, if you have seen the news, the Venezuelan government can't bypass the gringo's blockade to by medicines for its people, but keeps finding ways to circunvent such blockade and continue purchasing weapons and equipment for the military; a State that is able to send very well equipped troops to disperse, beat up, and arrest unarmed protestors is also unable to send at least some firefighters to put out a fire that is suffocating hundreds of sick people. Those are the ironies we are supposed to be thankful for.

My mother-in-law has been suffering since December of some asthma attacks, a combination of hereditary conditions and alergic reactions aggravated by degrading living conditions (sewage water, molded walls, stress, malnutrition, depression). She used to be a secretary for one of the Ministry of Education's School Districts. Technically, she has insurance, but you know how symbolic those became under the revlutionary interpretaion of "free and quality health care for all". There is not a single average citizen with an insurance that will cover anything from a simple doctor's visit to some basic medication, let alone major procedures or tests.

_{Waiting at X-Rays area}

Thus, we all depend now on the goodness of the public health system, with all its limitations and corruptions. On Thursday, after some 4 hours waiting, we were unable to have my mother-in-law to have an X-ray taken. Aparently, after a certain number of patients the machine must be turned off and no matter how urgent the request is, people have to wait until the next day, which of course makes it even more difficult because there is an accumulation of patients from previous days.

She was lucky, though, because she has a relative who works at the hospital and was able to move her up the waiting line from June 11th (the closest appointment) to Friday morning (yesterday).

_{Waiting outside doctors' office.}

After we finally got the X-Ray, we had to wait in another line for the doctor to see her.

After the Dr. saw her, ratified her diagnosis (chronic asthma patient), and prescribed some medication (Montelukast for 3 months), she sent us to the hospital's drugstore to see if they had the medication and could give it to us. We waited some more in this last line. Unfortunatelly, they did not have the medication.

_{Line to pick up medication, if they have it. We weren't that lucky.}

I did not find the medication after visiting 15 drugstores in town. The expected price (27,000 Bs), though, will make it impossible for my mother-in-law to get it. She would have to buy 3 boxes (81,000 Bs). For someone who gets 56,000 a month (pension) to have to spend this outrageous amount of money on one single item and forget about all her other expenses is technically a death sentence. As it is happening to most people in the country, unless she gets it for free from some institution or a friend or relative, she will not be able to follow the treatment, which means that she will continue getting sick, probably aggravating her condition and having to go back to a hospital that deteriorates by the minute as more people overcrowd it, machines brake, and staff leave.

It is a bleak scenario the one on which sick people in my country are performing what can be their last act.

_{A tuberculosis patient.}

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