Epic lies, epic Covid in Venezuela

As weeks go by the situation in Venezuela gets worse. Reports that reach me are frightening.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a long tweet thread in Spanish and with new updates I think it is a time to make it a text in english.

Me van a perdonar por esta serie de hilos en matrioshka sobre la incompetencia del régimen frente al Covid, pero cada día hay más barbaridades que agregar.
Hoy tenemos que reportar lo de @DrodriguezVen al rechazar la entrada de #AstraZeneca, bordeando la locura asesina. https://t.co/DaYP9rqZke

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) March 25, 2021

The thread was taken and retaken as a matryoshka doll as new stuff occurred; so I'll try to give the linear story below.

ONE YEAR AGO/ COVID LANDS

In what has probably been the only good measure taken against the Covid19 pandemia, the regime locked its border like no one else. I suppose that the regime knew it could not face the pandemia and thus its only weapon was to lock up every body so as to have the lowest possible spread. And yet two despicable acts accompanied it. First, it was made an unnecessarily stringent lock up as there was a major gas shortage. Confinement made that shortage less obvious. But what was truly despicable was the regime talking of "imported" cases. In its daily notes the regime mentioned something like this "today we have detected 5 new cases, 4 of them being imported". The meta message was that Covid was sent to us from overseas, that the good Venezuelan people could possibly not have anything to do with it. In the first weeks the number of "imported" cases tended to be the highest of the two. Until eventually the charade had to stop: with airports closed for weeks how could you still talk of "imported cases"?

PANDEMIA CATCHES UP 

There is well over a million Venezuelan refugees in Colombia. As Colombia was struck down with Covid, many considered coming back to Venezuela either because doors were shutting in Colombia or because they needed to go back to Venezuela to take care of those left behind: namely the grand parents and the grand kids they were taking care of while the adults tried their luck away. On their return at the border they were mercilessly put in concentration camps, with little food or hygiene to quarantine. And they were subjected to scorn for having left the homeland, and whatnot.

COVAX TIMES

The end of 2020 came with the promise of vaccines, in particular the COVAX program from the WHO to provide dosis at reasonable prices or even free to poor countries so they could at least vaccinate medical personnel; teachers, etc....  But there was a problem with that program: you had to be up to date on your WHO membership and that meant Venezuela would have to pay 11 million dollars late fees/dues dollars to have access. Chavismo is now a constant dead beat, and the WHO is no exception. Instead of sending a check (the regime was at the time talking of buying new army weaponry) the regime tried to use the excuse of the US sanctions as to why they could not pay. Then started the leitmotiv "we cannot vaccinate because the US will not let us do it". Which is of course total despicable bull shit.

CARVATIVIR: whitcraft?

In January came the Carvativir fiasco. As Covid cases kept growing the government was in need to show some initiative. What did they do? Another great business opportunity. Through two unknown guys, with no CV in the hard sciences needed for that, and a brand new company, Maduro announced on TV some mysterious drops bases on plant oils that prevented and cured Covid. The world was soon going to be told about the virtues of Carvativir! And yet here we are still awaiting for the data with bated breath.

OPPOSITION TRIES ITS BEST

The regime excuse for no money was countered by the opposition who offered to ask the US to unfreeze some assets so that vaccines could be bought. An initial agreement was reached with over 300,000 test kits that would be distributed to a list of centers. The kits arrived, the regime took over them, decided to distribute them wherever they liked and....  we never heard of them anymore. Why? Because the regime does not want to publish any real numbers of any medical sistation, and this has happened for many years already. More importantly, they took the tests to be used for the higher up of the regime. Privatized so to speak. Bloomberg reports that only 3,000 or so results were reported. No word on the 300,000 other tests. This will have grave consequences on the willingness of donors in the future since trust is lost to unrefrained cronyism and absolute irresponsibility.

FOR THE REGIME ALL IS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

Before I go on it is important to understand what is going on with the regime on Covid matters

• Denial. Numbers can never be published. It is not happening to us. The US invented it.
• All must be controlled by the regime. Thus any help from any donor has to be given to regime personnel to do as it pleases, namely distribution as pro regime propaganda.
• The opposition is the great villain: any initiative0 or offer of collaboration by the opposition must be refused, sabotaged and what not.
• And greed, so much greed. One recent example is that a new laboratory without any track record on medical analisis and less on Covid got the exclusive privilege to offer mandatory COVID PCR test to incoming travellers who must pay 60$ IN CASH at arrival at the airport, regardless if they did a test before boarding, if they have been vaccinated, etc. 60 USD in cash, no credit card, no local currency, greenbacks or nothing.

So it should not come as a surprise that we have the first reports of blackmarket vials of vaccines who can come only out of the doses already entering the country under strict regime control.

SPUTNIK V COMETH

The vaccine era finally arrived and started with the Russians testing their Sputnik vaccine on Venezuelans. Nothing has been published about the results, that I know of. But I also know first hand that some testing was seriously made from a scientist friend that received a dose. OK, so lets give the benefit of the doubt here. What is not to be doubted is that when the first lot of Sputnik came for actual vaccination the priorities were clearly announced by the regime: security personnel AND medical personnel, named in second. There was a brief scandal when we learned that the representatives of the illegal national assembly elected in December 2020 were among the first ones to be vaccinated. Some were dumb enough to show their selfies of the moment until told to remove them from social media fast.  But Maduro was dumb and crass enough to brag on TV that he did get his shots... Meanwhile doctors and nurses were left without vaccine, scavenging for soap and masks.

Ah! I was forgetting! 95% of Cuban personnel in Venezuela is already vaccinated, ahead of Venezuelan doctors. That is what happens to you when you accept to become a colony..... Note: vaccinated NOT by the alleged Cuban vaccines in development but by the regime purchased ones.

THE HOI POLOI STARTS GETTING SOME

Eventually the regime felt the need to vaccinate some besides the generals and Maduro's entourage. So we were treated to the first videos of elderly being called to get vaccinated. And propaganda it was......

In this thread I explained how 529 doses of Sputnik were distributed only to those who owned a "carnet de la patria". That is, if you are not chavista or have not surrendered to chavismo, you get no vaccine. Think about this for a minute.....

We all knew the vaccination of Venezuelan people would only happen as long as the regime could gain political advantage from it. This video from "journalist" @YndiTorregrosa shows you how far the regime will go for its propaganda and social control. https://t.co/oCq8qsHnL9

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) April 10, 2021

ASTRA ZENECA BANNED

Russian and dubious Chinese vaccines are arriving dropwise. COVAX worked out and agreement between the regime and the opposition to bring in Astra Zeneca AND equipment for the logistic process in distributing the vaccines. Yes, that is right, the current situation of Venezuela requires that in addition of bringing in vaccines donors should also bring in refrigerators, power plants and what not since Venezuela cannot even guarantee enough electrical power. No Pfizer ever here. Well, Venezuela was going to receive over 10 million doses of Astra Zeneca vaccine, the easiest one to handle and that could cover at least the main cities, ALL medical and teaching personnel and the elderly. At the last minute Maduro used the excuse of the troubles with AstraZeneca to ban it outright and announce that it would be substituted by the Cuban ones, not even in Phase III testing, that is, improper to massive vaccination (amen on whether Cuba can produce enough of them).

The opposition was prompt in denouncing the regime who prefers to see thousand more die of the virus than to accept that the opposition gets any credit in the fight against the pandemia.

THE SCARLETT LETTER

Meanwhile as vaccines are delayed, the pandemia advances. A creative chavista mayor decided to make it public and notorious to identify the homes of those who had a Covid case inside....  Words fail me on that one.......

One of the primitive mayors of my home state.
Any home in Sucre were a #covid case is reported will be plastered with a notice. Any attempt at removing will mean removal from the regime handouts programs, essential in impoverished Sucre county.#BringInYourInnerFascist https://t.co/PgizBWJjuC

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) April 7, 2021

IT IS FREE ONLY IN VENEZUELA

The lies of the regime are so linked that you need new ones daily to try to escape being exposed as a liar yesterday. The latest atrocious lie comes from Vice Delcy who tells on national TV that only Venezuela gives vaccines for free while infamous capitalist countries like the US demand payment. Once again, in front of such blatant lies I remain speechless....  Though I can point out that it does not matter whether vaccines are free in Venezuela since there are none to be found.....

 AND MORE DISASTERS

I need to end this entry. There is so much more to say. El Pais of Spain has an excellent summary of recent problems which should tell the regime that the world is watching the crimes it is committing.  Among those:

• The private business organization FEDECAMARAS offered the regime to pay and bring in vaccines for its own workers. It even accepted a fee of 20% cut of these vaccines for the regime at its discretionary use. Yes, that is right, private enterprise would pay for the vaccines of its employees and their family and pay for an extra big chunk of vaccines for a regime that should be vaccinating all for free. The regime refused.
• El Pais is worried about the sudden desperate search for oxygen in Venezuela. Social media is awash with people looking for oxygen tanks anywhere at any cost. That is a sure sigh that the Covid economic is now out of control in Venezuela. And the lack of oxygen supplies is simply impossible to solve. Even less by the regime.
• El Pais also wonders how come that since Russia and China are supposedly close allies they are not sending as many vaccine doses as they are sending elsewhere.

SO?

Time to stop for today. Just a few thoughts about the nastiness and why the regime is handling so badly the epidemic in Venezuela.

The first thing that strikes us is the secrecy about it all, the great length the regime takes to hide the tragedy. Not only numbers now come from independent medical observers, and well, well above those of the regime, but we are not told about the mass burials in unmarked graves, the near impossibility that crematorium have in processing all the demands they receive as Covid death are cremated, not buried. I know of two cases from people relatively close who had loved ones die and all the travails they had to endure to recover the bodies (and I will spare you the illness stories and how they ended up in public hospitals or the Poliedro which are now little more that thanatoriums). 

The second striking thing is that the pandemia is all about politics. The regime absolute refusal to get help from the opposition and international donors is simply put genocidal. The regime pretends that all be given to them, all sanctions lifted, etc. while at the same time it demonstrates once and again its incompetence, its sectarism, the waste it would be if by chance donors would be foolish enough to cave in their demands. That is, give in or not to the regime, it is clear that the death toll will be similar.

Another damning thing is the extremely poor scientific and medical means of the regime. From inventing Carvativir to ban Astra Zeneca for problems irrelevant for the current Venezuelan health system YOU KNOW that those in charge of the pandemia have fucking no idea of what they are doing. Explanation? Those in charge are political hacks who would not know if an astrazeneca beast from an oxygen diving gear.

These are crimes against humanity that need to be documented for future use.

Carvativir as the symbol of Covid Maduro's failure

It is now common knowledge that Venezuela's dealings with Covid19 have been a failure. The best that can be said is that the regime has bet secretly on herd immunity because, well, there is nothing else the regime can do.

And yet in the midst of this abject failure to preserve the health of Venezuelans, the regime manages to outdo itself in its abjectness. Now Maduro on TV has revealed himself a snake oil promoter. Rarely I have been as angry at the regime than after seeing the clip below.

Well, against his incapacity to deal with COVID and much less to vaccinate the country @NicolasMaduro has decided to sell snake oil. With "carvativir" he claims that 10 drops under your tongue every 4 hours will kill 100% of the coronavirus.
Let's delve: https://t.co/0CpLkxz0Eb pic.twitter.com/Rms6HYcN8v

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) January 25, 2021

What is behind all of that charade?

The end arriveth

Milton Friedman said something of the kind that were the Sahara to be ruled by communist the desert would run out of sand within a few years.

Well, it just happened in Venezuela, perhaps the first mega oil producer in history that has run out of gasoline.

And at the very possible worst time as we ran out of money, when Coronavirus stroke, when an ailing production is least able to suffer such a disaster.

Admittedly, referring to Friedman we are not sure anymore what is ruling in Venezuela. Communists? Socialists? Fascists of the XXI century?  For sure narcos. For that matter, we do not even know if someone is in charge, besides those organizing repression of course.

The political consequences were quickly seen.

Coronavirus a.k.a COVID 19 : the Venezuelan story

No need to soften the blow. If the first case of Coronavirus in Venezuela is not yet confirmed, it is just a matter of time until a verifiable one is reported.  In fact, the Pan American Health Organization has announced that it is sending missions to vulnerable countries. That is, vulnerable in their health system, including in the list Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua. The implications are obvious.

Venezuela is highly vulnerable to such an epidemy. The public health system is in shambles, unable to deal with such an epidemic, justifying the worries of the PAHO.  The private system has become terribly expensive, and it is certainly not designed to substitute the public health system. At all.

Never mind that elemental precautions such as washing your hands with soap are often daunting as soap is of poor quality, very expensive, and running water way too often not available. Using long stored buckets of water will not cut it.

More worrisome is the nature of the regime bound to hide what could be a major catastrophe.  I am going to pass on the usual accusations of conspiracy that the US would have created the Coronavirus to destroy China (and the world? including the US?). Some chavista was bold enough to mention 1989 as the date when the inoculation started.....

The idiocy of chavismo, its absolute lack of understanding and interest for science and objective data is well documented. What is more dangerous is its denial. Already the government of Zulia, where that possible case has been reported, said that it was all a farce, a simulation.  Imagine what will happen when it will not be possible to hide cases of COVID 19 in Caracas....

Let me remind the reader that the regime has made its strong suit to kill statistics and hide the extent on which old epidemics returned. We have again tuberculosis and rubeola. Paludism, Dengue and Yellow Fever are all back even though they do barely appear in official statistics.  And this has been happening for a long time. Ten years ago I was hospitalized for hemorrhagic Dengue and already doctors told me that they stopped reporting cases as the health ministry simply refused to confirm the cases coming to them daily.  Imagine today.....

Woe is us.

Lost from afar

I feel obliged to blurt something since it is going to be soon a month without an entry.  But then again, contrary to Punditlandia principles where the less you know about a topic the most you believe to be entitled to speak or write about it, it does not feel right to me to write about the suffering of Venezuela this past months, when I am here with all life's comfort.

It has been particularly offensive to read some Liberals, from the Obama administration, preaching absolute non involvement with Venezuela to patronizing congratulations about the recent declaration that the Red  Cross supplies will enter, with the suggestion that the opposition bears some of the responsibility as to why humanitarian help did come sooner to Venezuela.  That type of self sufficiency is unbearable and I find Ilham Omar in a way less offensive, at least she does not patronize.   But it confirms one thing, the Obama administration Southern policy has been a complete fiasco and we see new evidence on the why everyday.

If I digress on that it is because the hand wriggling I read from many parts is obscene. Only now they are  realizing that Maduro is a serious problem? And yet they have been unable to man up to the situation and do something about it.  Europe as a whole is way behind the US. If France spearheads the critics, the recent visit of Prince Charles to Cuba is total disgrace. I think Brexit has fried the UK government brains. They keep condemning Maduro but they send the heir to the pupeteer. 

The point here is that Venezuela is left to cruise fast to disaster. What happened in March is unspeakable.  Besides the obvious strain on the population there is also terminal damage to the economy. 

I lost my mother in law two days ago. She is not a "direct" victim of the blackouts but they certainly sped up her condition, delaying many treatments and lab checks. Not being there does no allow me to decide between  direct and "direct".  Amen of my personal distress at losing the woman with whom I had to share the burden that were the 5 years of Ivan's via crucis, and not  being there to thank her again and say farewell.

But there were material losses. My freezers barely made it through the first 79 hour blackout. Not too much loss there but a total loss in my refrigerator.  When there is no light there is no water and a lot of my gardening went dry.  My family had its own losses and misery, in particular a brother stuck on an eighth floor with 2 kids, wife, and two visiting in laws.  And yet we were not the worse off.

The worse off where people without food, unable to pay for it if they could find some it since there is no cash and no card points.  People who saw their neighbouring food stores being pillaged by chavista hords, directed by the way. People in hospitals, where again the regime locked public entrance least some one would report casualties. People without water for days as we wait for some epidemic to rear its head.  People without security as the lack of light made lock up themselves in the hope that colectivos, paramilitary and mere  criminals would catch them absolutely defenseless.

It has been awful,  being thrown back into the XIXth century suddenly, without even a phone to call for help or inform relatives that, well, you were still alive.

But even more awful is that blackouts are now long and recurrent. And even worse that the regime makes a mockery of it, inventing the stupidest excuses possible, sending people saying that we recovered the ability to talk to each other, village activities of yore, while on state TV, if you could see it, joy, happiness, dancing, patriotic victory screams were the news.

More than ever the regime has shown its two worse defaults, amen of the down right criminal.  First, it's absolute incompetence. With 3 million out of the country, with 30% production from what was produced a few years ago, it is unable to keep electricity as consumption dropped considerably.

And second, that it does not care a shit, that it is genocidal.

What Josep Borrel really meant : a lost country

Spain had what is normal in a parliamentary system: there was a motion vote that ousted the sitting Mariano Rajoy which automatically replaced him with the "leader" of the opposition, Pedro Sanchez.  This one did not reach premiership after last elections since, well, he barely floated around a quater of the vote. But Spain is a country of instituions and Sanchez heads a ministry that is held in place in large part by the good will of very the leftist PODEMOS who is a big, bought, friend of chavismo.

The door opened again.
Borrel and Chavez son in law.

We need to understand this to interpret, in part only, the recent words of Josep Borrel, the new foreign office holder. He said during a meeting with Venezuela's foreign minister, the creep that got there because he married a Chavez daughter, that Spain will not spearhead sanctions against Venezuela anymore and that dialogue should be renewed [english].  Some in Venezuela interpret this as a success, some as a betrayal, both are wrong.

Medicine for the rich, or how to postpone some genocide for a little while

So I had an event due to stress that had me hospitalized for two days and that will change a lot of my life. No details necessary, the stress under which I have been subjected for the last 4 years is the real explanation. But the damage is done and now I have to rebuild what I can from my old life with all the same problems as I had before. And even worse as my S.O. health is not doing better the more so that his support is not shipshape.

Those little genocidal moments

About every 6 weeks or so I need to take the S.O. to pick up his treatments at the IVSS high cost medicine.  By law in Venezuela a whole series of medications, usually expensive, cannot be sold and must be administered by the state (from rulings BEFORE the Chavez era, mind you, least you'd think that Chavez invented each and every social programs; 1).

This notable initiative has, of course, turned into a bureaucratic nightmare which with the current crisis has tuned out to become a nightmare of genocidal proportions. Today's story.

Back to the XIX century

Regular readers may remember that often I wrote that chavismo was a mere reactionary movement, harking back to an ideal time of macho caudillos and independence wars. That violence and poverty ruled over Venezuela from 1805 until Gomez established the first stable regime of our history is apparently not an historical fact that chavistas can be bothered with: all that is wrong in Venezuela comes exclusively from the 1958-98 period and the evil empire up North.

Well, chavismo should be delighted because we are getting back to these halcyon days of robber barons (cheap ones, not rich ones as in the US) and grinding poverty. Four items to frighten you.

Cabello sinks, the army can shoot with real bullets, Patricia Janiot exposes. Maduro panics?

In defence of your nation, religion, and laws,

Today the regime decided to intervene Farmatodo, the big pharmacy store chain of Venezuela, the first one to operate US style (all, from medicines to pop sodas). And it did so nastily by putting in jail its CEO and attendants.

Maduro's regime announces official rationing for Venezuela

The economic news keep getting worse. The regime cranks up propaganda.

WORK SHOP: Maximum Socialist Efficacy (New economic Order)

Nice workshop but the results are against any efficiency: rationing is announced. And we can announce fearlessly right now that the unavoidable black market will come with it.

Things must be really bad, and prospects for improvement almost nil for the regime to make it finally official that by the end of the year all supermarkets and food stores will have a finger print system to restrict what you can purchase. In short, if we are to believe the regime, if I buy 2 pounds of corn flour at store X, any other store will know about it and I will not be allowed to buy more corn flour for that week.

That from the view over here the logistics seem unworkable is irrelevant. I do not even know where the regime is going to get the currency to buy all the material it needs to equip all the stores it wishes to control.

No, what truly natters here is that the regime has taken finally an economic decision: controls will not be eased on the economy, real long term market solutions will not take place. As a consequence utmost centralization and control will proceed, with the poverty spread that comes along. Forget about devaluation, increase the price of gas, release some exchange controls to improve at least production of food. Here, we are going to use the few dollars available to buy a subsistence food system for all. After all if you cannot buy a car why should you worry about the price of gas? If you cannot afford travel, why should you care about which airlines fly to Venezuela?  If you cannot afford Foie Gras and Salmon, why worry about corn flour being rationed to you?

And if you have any doubts about my words look at other bits of news.

The health sector is demanding a humanitarian emergency because medical supplies are not arriving and stocks are now depleted. The regime merely replies that they are overreacting even though you only need to visit the nearest pharmacy and listen to attendants tell a third of patrons "we do not have this one". But of course, one thing is to ration food, another thing is to ration medicine...

If food scarcity is a problem, other items are also missing. Toilet paper may be back, but look for shampoo or deodorant. Tooth paste is also back but gone is soap.

But even if you do not look at "material" issues as the ones described above, you will also observe that services are decreasing fast across the country. The main responsibility for this is the labor law decreed to help Chavez reelection in 2012. The law already nonviable in times of normally dysfunctional economy is now simply inapplicable in service sectors. As such a lot of business are reducing hours, reducing services and thus making our already hard lives more miserable.

Addendum 

The Normal Heart

I watched last night on HBO the film version of the famous Larry Kramer play of 1984 about the AIDS crisis in New York. That sent me for a time warp spin.

Empty hospitals, empty airports

While Capriles and the MUD keep gazing at their navel and while chavismo tries to find a novel idea, the country keeps sinking at a steady pace. Today we had two gems that speak volumes about what await us.

In Snowden less news: murder of a fireman and nationalization of Venezuelan medicine

As if the regime hadn't enough fronts open, it has decided to control the prices of the medical services offered by private clinics. And the insurance companies promptly approved saying that they will only honor the nominal prices. And yet this only hides the deep failure of the health system that the regime started to improvise for electoral purposes since 2003. The public system being such a failure, everyone tries desperately to get a private insurance so as to go to private clinics that work much better than the public sector even though much is to be criticized with them. The regime is upset and shoots the messenger, by bankrupting this one. It is that simple.

Nurse practitioner they ain't

One of the latest scandals that I have been meaning to write about is the case of the "medicina integral comunitaria".   They are folks that are about to be unleashed as full doctors in the Venezuelan public health system without the knowledge to take care of the people that go to such hospitals.  But before I get into the subject indulge me a personal reminiscence.

One of my very close friends is a Nurse Practitioner (and a PhD in public health).  She is close enough to have visited me 4 times in Venezuela since I left the States which is quite something if you think of it for a US citizen in an academic career.  I met her while she was supporting her PhD expenses working as a NP and I gained then a considerable respect for that degree, thinking it an essential part of the US medical system, a part sorely missing in either the European system (I think) and certainly in Venezuela.  In brief, had I remained in the US she would have got my power of health to make sure that I would be unplugged if worse came to worse.  That much I trusted her medical knowledge.

Health Care in Venezuela: even the private sector lags

Chavista propaganda would like us to believe that health care in Venezuela is the best.  Well, it is not and we know that from nay sources, from the number of "barrio adentro" modules that are closed to the pitiful condition of public hospitals which are of public knowledge.  But today I got some even more worrisome news: even private medicine in Venezuela is decaying fast so even if you have money and heath insurance, well, you have few choices.

My twitter brought me though Decifrado this link from America Economia which lists the 20 bests health centers in Latin America, from private clinics to public hospitals and teaching universities.  Venezuela has only one clinic ranked, Clinica Metropolitana, which readers should remember from the travails that yours truly endured there.  In a way I am happy because this conforms to me that my appreciation of Clinica Metropolitana as a top institution in spite of all the miseries faced to operate in a country ruled by incompetence.  But look at the table some more and you will start wondering....  

Intelligent life forms missing the start of the year lead you to scary conclusions

As my recovery improves I started reading the papers again.  Fortunately this time of the year papers are thin, less news and advertisement.  Unfortunately this "light" version allows for a clearer view of the idiocies and bad news reported (never mind about the not very bright staff left to report during this holiday season).

Daniel’s unwilling hunger strike

Hunger strike has been a fashionable way to protest, from the students in front of the OAS offices in Caracas to the Saharoui activist in Lanzarote. Now I have a fine appreciation of what it is to be almost a week with barely a few liquids for sustenance.

Two weeks ago I came down with dengue, the fashionable tropical disease, a virus transmitted by a specific mosquito. I already had it once, ten years ago and thus as expected the second time was to be much harder. My platelets went down to 3,500 which means that I was at the mercy of something as trivial as gum bleeding. It was that close. And yet the whole ordeal allowed me for a keen understanding of the mess Venezuela’s health system is at. Mind you, I went through it with the private sector, but I saw first hand how the negative policies of the Chavez administration are affecting all sectors, making me really wonder how low the quality of public sector service has fallen.

It all started in San Felipe where a slight fever the night before required next morning a visit to the emergency room of a local clinic. I spent the day there and was asked to take all sorts of test, from HIV to Epstein Bar, but not dengue. No privacy at anytime, my results would have been handled by whomever came across my papers. I was in bad shape enough that I was given I.V. fever medicine. At the end of the day I was sent back home, asked to come back next day to see whether my platelets would go down, the only dengue criteria available.

Next day was hell. I could not sleep that night, acetaminophen had stopped working. I needed a friend from Valencia to come and check out the situation. Upon her arrival she knew that things were bad, took me back to the clinic for them to stabilize me while she organized ambulance service. See, the people of San Felipe were in the best disposition to help me but all of San Felipe private sector is saturated due to the public central hospital collapse; thus they had no room for me…. At any rate it was wiser to go back to Caracas where I had more people to help me.

I think we left San Felipe around 4 PM. I am not sure because by then I was semi delirious as the evidence of dengue forbade any strong fever medicine. I was fit with my I.V. line and tossed in the only vehicle available in the area, an ambulance of a certain age with a very defective suspension. Thus I was able to enjoy for almost 4 hours every pothole that chavismo has allowed to flourish everywhere for the past ten years. It was hell, and made the worse as the paramedics could not even listen to the radio as Chavez was in cadena.

We reached Caracas at night. In spite of all the preparations my relatives had tried to take the Clinica Metropolitana was collapsing at its emergency and I was left for quite a while in a hallway as the paramedics were trying to have at least me switch to another stretcher so they could recover theirs and leave for another urgency somewhere in Maracay. Finally they tossed me into a trauma room where the other bed was occupied by another dengue case from Valle de la Pascua. The poor guy had been confused for an infection case, plied with antibiotics until finally some relatives decided to seek more competent doctors as there was no improvement.

I was to stay in emergency for 48 hours since I was too critical to be put in a room. I was stuck with all sorts of lines for constant monitoring while eventually the doctors ordered platelets transfusion, something easier said than done. See, of the 10 or so potential donors we managed to line up only 3 were approved and I got the platelets from one of my brothers since he happened to be the first at hand and same blood group.

For 48 hours I was given to observe up close as a participant sport the life of an emergency room. Activity all the time, in that basement you do not know whether it is day light. I must say that I was rather impressed. In spite of an edge of chaos feel, things run, attention does not waver, and people seem composed and knowledgeable enough. And doctors also seemed quite good. I caught myself wondering how good these people could indeed become. When you think at the difficult life we have now in Caracas, when you think about the overflow from the defeated public sector where in spite of Chavez words ministries discretely keep contracting private heath insurance, it is a miracle that the show runs so well. But think a little bit further: if these doctors did not have to spend at least 2 hours a day in traffic, if they did not have to deal with the rain of sanctions and intromissions from the state who resent their success while the state is flunking its own duties, in other words if these doctors had the means to do more research, the Metropolitana could be our own little Mayo Clinic. The experience and the talent they have, still. What they need is the time and means.

I also learned in these hours that there is a dengue epidemic and that you would never learn about it from the state media (and even more unaccountably so from the private media, scared of certain news). The Metropolitana itself is getting 5 cases a week at least. If we add the other major private establishments of Caracas it is easy to speculate that the cases of dengue are in the several dozens a week, enough to justify a major fumigation and prevention campaign. As far as I know only the municipality of Baruta manages some light spraying, the other without the means to do so. Meanwhile the state spends its energy in sending a vulgar and blurting Chavez to Copenhagen when the price of that wasted trip would be enough to spray all of Caracas green areas.

Things are worse than what you think. Once I was in a room, with my neurons firing a little bit again, the scientist in me wanted to know more. See, normally when a dengue case diagnosis is reported the INH (or whatever the name of the epidemiology state system is today) is supposed to visit the patient to ask epidemiological question. You know, to try to locate the focus, fumigate and whatnot. In fact they should even take a blood sample if early enough in the disease to establish the dengue strain. The INH not only has stopped visiting clinics and hospitals for that matter but no official epidemiological bulletin has been published in years. The Caracas doctors and clinics have to rely on themselves for any prevision they might want to take! As far as chavismo is concerned there is no dengue epidemic. Maybe they see epidemiological diseases as just a “sensacion” as the state ombudsman likes to qualify any intractable social problem, a media creation to provoke a feeling of insecurity, food shortage or dengue. I can witness myself first hand on how remiss of its essential obligations the Venezuelan state is, not only unable to heal people, but unable even to do the basic documentation so that other people could help. Make no mistake, if in the private sector dengue is such a problem I let you imagine what is going on in public hospitals and barrio adentro. Never mind the real numbers of swine flu.

And yes, I qualify myself as being a victim of Chavez in this regard, as my disease got worse for the difficulty in accessing care, even private care, as my contagion comes from a general degree in decay in infrastructure and water works allowing for the return of plagues such as paludism, malaria, tuberculosis and others, diseases we thought we had under control 20 years ago.

There was an interesting detail which in a way could explain in part that state indifference to the pandemic. Apparently there are 4 strains of dengue. 1, 2 and 4 have now been long established in Venezuela but 3 is a rather recent arrival. If I understand well it was not documented in Venezuela 10 years ago. The curious detail of that strain is that it is reported to have come to the Caribbean through the Cuban soldiers when they were fighting in Angola three decades ago. The Cubans arrived with Chavez when he turned Venezuela into a Cuban colony. You may draw your own conclusions.

The rest of the story is not as exciting. After 48 hours in emergency with people wondering whether I was going to make it, my body started reacting and I was sent into a room where slowly I waited for my platelets to climb back to 100,000. My only distraction was to enjoy the beautiful Caracas December light though my window, after spending the night trying to find a way to sleep around my IV line (I spent 8 days with all sorts of drips as dengue also does havoc with your electrolyte balance, amen of a liver lesion which will keep me away from booze for at least a month). Not even that much TV, and not looking forward visitors as I tire very fast. I did manage to contact Miguel who very graciously made an announcement. I wish to thank every one who wrote, hoping you understand it might still be a while until I can thank you all properly for your concern. But be assured, what is ahead is only a long rest, maybe up to a month. That I can type again may bring me relief from boredom by posting regularly, if infrequently, soon.

Meanwhile you can take as a home lesson that any numbers emitted from the government on any social affliction are, well, [feel in the blank word]. There is no reliable statistics coming from Venezuelan institutions, the creepier the topic, the less reliable the published number. What is left for us is to figure out what are outright lies and simply “enhanced” numbers. And make sure you have good medical contact and coverage with relatives willing to stand in line for you for hours in case you need to lay on a stretcher.

The "Ripley beleive it or not" Venezuelan health system

A casual look to Venezuelan news during my Seattle morning coffee break manages to leave me speechless, but not keyboardless.

It turns out that Chavez yesterday admitted that there are problems with the Venezuelan health system, that 2000, two thousands, barrio adentro joints were not working.... Besides the fact that if Chavez had been reading the newspapers he would have known long ago that a boatload of barrio adentro modules were closed, one can only wonder about that 2000 number. After all if we take it at 10 a city that would mean that 200 cities in Venezuela, 200!, would be out in trouble. Are they 200 cities in Venezuela? Or another way to rephrase the question, how many small communities in the boondocks have been left without any medical attention, as deficient as that one might have been in the first place?

But it gets worse. Chavez admitted that he was called to order by Fidel Castro who apparently learned before him about the deficient state of the mision barrio adentro. Chavez had no problem adding that it was Fidel who sent the inspection team.

One does not know whether to cry or to laugh at such inanity and lack of self respect, amen of respecting Venezuela.

But I know why Chavez is doing such a ridiculous show, where in addition he promised zillions of new doctors form Cuba: there was a terrible accident in Clarines where a chlorine gas truck hit another truck with scores of people injured or killed, in a World War I like trench cataclysm. This of course exposed the totally inadequate reply to emergency capacity of the state, as we learned that the renovation of the Clarines hospital was 10 years behind schedule. Add to this the recent weapon purchase and you will understand the desperate need of Chavez to make a ridiculous show to distract the opinion away from his absolute heath care failure, supposedly the bright success of the bolibanana revolution in the official propaganda.

Sigh... enough reading before it spoils further my vacation....

Note. In all of these news item I did not see the main point, the real main point addressed: how come it is so difficult to find people to work at barrio adentro. The bolibanana revolution cannot be bothered with such details...

-The end-

There is a world pandemic. Meanwhile, back at Chavez ranch...

There is an outbreak of what seems to be a new Flu Virus (rather than the poor pigs bearing all the blame again).

What does chavismo says? Two things:

1) all is fine, marches can be going on, rallies held. A responsible government would forbid any marches, opposition or chavista alike, for a week or two. But that would mean that the beloved leader could not hold hostage hundred of his followers in a single room for hours on end during any of his frequent cadena perorata. Not to mention that in authoritarian regimes, all should be the best in the better of the world, Candide style. That is, until someone is found to blame.

2) instead of seeking cooperation of local authorities and making sure that flu vaccines and medication are plentiful (working or not is not the question here, a lousy vaccine is still better than no vaccine for the populations more at risk) chavismo is instead taking by assault local health centers so that none of them would be under the care of local opposition authorities. Of course, taking by assault with the Nazional Guard these centers, as if they were dangerous military objectives, result in the closing of these centers for a few days if not weeks until certified red personnel can be found to manage them. But by experience we know well that ridicule is not something that affects chavismo.

Now, we are all left to shudder about what will happen to Venezuela if the New Flu reaches our shores. There are already suspect cases in Colombia so it is just a matter of time. With Caracas overcrowding, with the decrepit system of Barrio Adentro, with a generally crumbling hospital infrastructure where minimum hygiene conditions are hard to maintain, not to mention that running water for more than half the population is something that happens an average of a few precious hours a day, I leave it to your imagination to guess the consequences of an epidemic in Venezuela.

In a perverse and sadistic way I am looking forward such an outbreak because it will expose bluntly all the wonders of the Chavez health care system. I mean, if it is going to happen I prefer it to be now because another couple of years of Chavez inefficient administration without money and increased corruption will make things worse. Then again, considering the government reluctance at acknowledging an increase in other diseases such as Dengue, Chagas, Paludism, Yellow Fever and Tuberculosis, you can already assume that whatever numbers are published will be highly unreliable.

PS: yesterday's assault against the Baruta and La Carlota neighborhood heath center is particularly galling. The reasons behind such a ridiculous assault bu the Nazional Guard are simple to understand: nothing should be left to the care of opposition elected officials, the more so if they stand a chance to do a better job than the previous chavista authorities. Thus, defeated governor Diosdado Cabello is organizing a deliberate sabotage of all the initiatives of his successor, Capriles Radonski, including a likely reopeneing of an extinct groundless judicial case. Not only Cabello demonstrates, along his boss, his absolute deficit of democratic values, amen of his established corruption abilities (moral and otherwise), but he also explicitly shows us that he is afraid of Capriles. Pathetic...

But Capriles like Ledezma is showing to be himself way more creative than the Chavez low life goons. With himself unable to coordinate the heath response to the coming crisis he decided to decree that his state of Miranda is now in an health emergency.

This is clever because it forces the government to demonstrate RIGHT NOW that its illegal take over of the local health facilities are not going to affect their function whatsoever. This, the government cannot do as it is already hard pressed to run what it controls. There is not enough Cuban doctors Chavez can bring along fast, or vaccines he can buy around. Not to mention that this will motivate the neighborhood associations that were protesting loudly to organize better their monitoring of the situation and inevitable protests in a country which is reaching fast ebullition conditions

-The end-