The Executive assures that it is “tuning strategies”, without knowing details of that plan or if the secret inspectors are already incorporated into the hospitals, a figure that revives the so-called Chavista intelligence, made up of civilians who warn regarding “destabilizing plans”, as opposition demonstrations.
In the hospitals of Venezuela there is a shortage of drugs, medical supplies, cleaning products or paper for administrative work, for which authorities blame the “hospital mafias”.
Although this is not new, now the Government assures that it is due to “mafias” made up of healthcare workers, some of them imprisoned, which has aroused the union outrage.
The president of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, declared a fight once morest what he calls “hospital mafias”.
As a first measure, he ordered the incorporation of secret inspectors in the health centers to hunt down the workers who steal the material that has been scarce for years and that still does not appear.
The battle has left a dozen health workers behind bars, some doctors.
This balance has encouraged the union protests of recent days, in which, in unison, they blame the Government for the hospital deterioration.
And meanwhile, patients who need surgeries even have to buy gloves for the staff who will enter the operating room.
Whose fault is it?
Sanitary workers have closed ranks and, with salaries of less than 100 dollars a month, have been on the streets for weeks protesting pending payments, better working conditions.
By the way, to reject Maduro’s accusations, without failing to point out that the directors of the hospitals, appointed by the Executive, are the ones who pull the strings.
“There are no supplies in the hospitals and they want to show (the government) that they take supplies to the hospitals to leave the workers like thieves,” trade union leader Pablo Zambrano, executive secretary of Fetrasalud, told Efe during a demonstration in Caracas. .
The trade unionist proposes that each hospital publish the inventory of what an idea receives that runs into government silence. This opted in the last decade not to disseminate data or indicators related to health, such as maternal and child mortality.
In the opinion of the nurse Dulce María Suárez, 54, the accusations are “totally false”.
On the other hand, those who work in public health centers look for a way to solve the lack of materials, something that EF AgencyE verified in a Caracas hospital that he had no paper for administrative work.
In the same place, a worker assured under strict anonymity that the theft of medical material is a reality. It is because of this that she sees fit that there be investigations without criminalizing the guild.
Dismember the “hospital mafias” in Venezuela
“We are going to dismember all the mafias in all the hospitals,” Maduro said on April 23.
Since then, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministries of the Interior and Justice, Health, the Police and the Ombudsman’s Office have joined the presidential “fight” with activities such as talks, meetings and visits to hospitals.
The purpose is to arrest health workers who charge patients to access services or treatments that, at least theoretically, are free.
Added to this are those behind the theft of medical materials, who are engaged in the illegal practice of medicine. As an ultimate goal, to create awareness regarding these issues.
precarious hospitals
If only what is said by the authorities is taken into account, the goal is to control and help public health centers to be “reborn”.
Operating rooms, delivery rooms, blood banks, pharmacies and specialized areas have, at least for five years, been highly inoperative.
Likewise, Maduro made sure not to generalize in his accusations but, once he spoke of “mafias”, he put thousands of toilets under suspicion.
The same ones who months ago were called “heroes” for facing the pandemic without a salary that allows them to pay their bills.
“Look for big fish, not the assholes, not doctors and nurses who measure up, (who) are working with our nails,” says nurse José Cárdenas, as a final recommendation, also during a protest.
The 47-year-old man recalls a reality that neither the work with the nails of the toilets nor the government’s fight once morest corruption in hospitals can deny.
The sick and their families juggle to obtain medicines and medical supplies that allow them to be treated in the most timely manner possible.
