Dying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuela’s Failing Hospitals [end stage socialism]

[markomalley]

From the NY Slimes:

The day had begun with the usual hazards: chronic shortages of antibiotics, intravenous solutions, even food. Then a blackout swept over the city, shutting down the respirators in the maternity ward.

(snip)

The economic crisis in this country has exploded into a public health emergency, claiming the lives of untold numbers of Venezuelans. It is just part of a larger unraveling here that has become so severe it has prompted President Nicolás Maduro to impose a state of emergency and has raised fears of a government collapse.

Hospital wards have become crucibles where the forces tearing Venezuela apart have converged. Gloves and soap have vanished from some hospitals. Often, cancer medicines are found only on the black market. There is so little electricity that the government works only two days a week to save what energy is left.

(snip)

This nation has the largest oil reserves in the world, yet the government saved little money for hard times when oil prices were high. Now that prices have collapsed — they are around a third what they were in 2014 — the consequences are casting a destructive shadow across the country. Lines for food, long a feature of life in Venezuela, now erupt into looting. The bolívar, the country’s currency, is nearly worthless.

Without a doubt a tragedy, but, as expected, the Slimes diagnoses the cause improperly. The problem is not that that the government saved little money for hard times, the problem is that the government was all to all. Rather than encouraging private resources to invest money in order to diversify Venezuela's economy, they spent-spent-spent in order to push the leftist agenda. How many remember this old commercial:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNE0os3f3VY

I still, to this day, will not buy gas at Citgo...even if it's the cheapest gas in town.

[Fishrrman]

The New York Times will blame Venezuela's problems on greedy capitalists who wouldn't give socialism a chance.

What that country needs is a modern-day Augusto Pinochet, to clean out the marxists (using whatever means necessary) and begin to rebuild the economy and infrastructure.

And -- as Pinochet did in Chile -- eventually return the reins of government to elected civilian authority...

[Bill Cipher]

What a shame. I know some Venezuelans and they are truly nice people.  It pains me to see what's become of the country. 

[geronl]

A blogger named Daniel (gay) and his, um, buddy... came to the US to buy the medicines they need. The government-run system in Venezuela just cannot function. Many people in that country are suffering and dying (like AIDS patients) because of the lack of advanced or even basic medicines. It cost them about $2,500 to come to the US and get those meds, the minimum wage there is $11 a month.

Anyone in that country who wants to travel has to buy dollars from the government, often this is declined for various reasons.