As politicians fight for help, patients in Venezuela die without it – 28/02/2019

One day, the Cacique family went to school on a motorcycle: the mother, a son and Nora, the 8 year old daughter. In the blink of an eye, a truck is overturned.

The accident sent the family to the hospital … and sentenced the father, Israel Cacique, to search all the pharmacies and the black market, or to go to Colombia, to an endless search for drugs and supplies necessary for their survival, because in their country, the health system collapses and hospitals lack essential elements, such as soap and alcohol.

The arrival of US donations of food and medical equipment to the border between Colombia and Venezuela early February he promised to be a lifesaver for the Cacique family and for dozens of other patients with serious illnesses or serious chronic diseases who were interviewed last week by The New York Times.

However, the provision of aid has been at the center of a growing political confrontation between President Nicolás Maduro and opposition in the country, and stalemate kept the supplies stopped in a customs warehouse in the border town of Cucuta, Colombia, for nearly two weeks.

Patients suffering from chronic diseases in Venezuela claim that political theater around aid has overshadowed their needs with catastrophic consequences.

In the pediatric wing of the San Cristóbal Central Hospital, desperate mothers roam the corridors with lists of out-of-stock drugs they need for their children's operations. Others are sitting in a helpless lethargy near the intensive care room, where their babies are in intensive care and fight against preventable bacterial diseases.

Irianny Baute Marín, a 2-month-old baby with bronchitis, receives respiratory treatment from a device patched with tape. His parents had to send someone to Colombia to get the antibiotics they need because they are not available in Venezuela.

"I feel a lot of anguish and despair," said her mother, 21-year-old Irene Marín. "I see her so innocent."

Many other families who do not have access to money to buy imported supplies consider blocked humanitarian aid This is your last chance to save your children.

"Please, let her go, we really need her," said Yuritza Montero, the grandmother of a month-old boy who suffers from 39; a bacterial infection while she held back her tears. "I know this help can save lives."

On the wall, a handwritten sign reads: "Health does not have political affiliation."

Maduro denied the existence of a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. On February 19, he badured that the country is able to export drugs. He described American aid as a Trojan horse whose goal is to overthrow his government and maintains the blockade of the bridge between Venezuela and Cucuta with barricades and soldiers.

On the other side of the bridge, the Venezuelan opposition leaders, accompanied by their Colombian hosts, described the provision of this aid as: part of a plan to get Maduro on. They seek to eliminate Maduro's control over the distribution of medicines and food, one of the tools he has used to ensure his loyalty. Opponents also hope that the Venezuelan armed forces, essential pillar of support for Maduro, will turn against them if they are forced to interfere between the people and the emergency relief.

For that, they have the strong support of the United States. The president of this country, Donald Trump, warned February 19 Venezuelan military that they continued to prevent the help of entering Venezuela "They would lose everything."

Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader who has been sworn in by the United States and some 50 governments, has promised that the convoys will pbad since last Saturday and will have traveled to the Cúcuta border to monitor the situation.

Latino pop artists, including Maluma and Juanes, performed Friday in Cucuta for a live concert, Venezuela Live Aid, which was organized in a hurry. The Venezuelan government he put on his own show on the other side of the border.

Faced with the escalation of political theater on the border, some opposition leaders acknowledged that nothing was done to guarantee the pbadage of supplies and that these reached the hands of the people in the country. need.

"The challenge is to keep human needs in mind as this political struggle continues," said Feliciano Reyes, director of Acción Solidaria, a non-profit organization. imports small amounts of donated drugs and distributes them directly to patients and physicians.

Aurelio Galán, an education officer from San Cristóbal, traveled to Cúcuta on 16 February, in an exhaustive journey through winding roads and mountainous terrain, to participate in a demonstration demanding the pbadage of medical supplies. Luz Marina, wife of Aurelio, was at his side, clinging to a plastic bag of dialysis solution; He had to buy the bag in Colombia because the government clinic he attended stopped providing it in January.

The offer of a week equals a full month of Aurelio's salary. He badured that he could soon no longer buy them.

"It's a political show where you can see it," said Aurelio, 53. "If they had wanted, they would have let go of the help."

Like many other dialysis patients and their families, Galán learned through social networks and local television that Cúcuta's help containers contain dialysis equipment, as well as medications for hypertension and diabetes, that patients with kidney disease also need.

At the Cucuta meeting on February 16, opposition spokesmen raised expectations.

"We will bring drugs to Venezuela, medical equipment and freedom," said Gonzalo Ruiz, a Venezuelan doctor and organizer of the militant group Coalición Ayuda y Libertad Venezuela.

The aid depot in Cúcuta gave a very different picture.

Since February 7, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has 190 tons of help to Cúcuta. Most are foods.

The initial amount of drugs in the store it's too small to have a significant impact, said Manuel Olivares, opposition leader in charge of the organization of medical aid. Hemodialysis kits should not arrive in the near future.

"We can not pretend that it will solve all the problems at the same time," he said.

International humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, as well as dozens of smaller medical badistance groups working in Venezuela, fear that political confrontation will jeopardize their work in the country. Although Caritas, a Catholic support group, said on February 21 that will support the opposition in its attempt to bring help to Venezuela.

On February 15, police raided and confiscated drugs from the Mavid Foundation, a small civilian organization that distributed HIV drugs in the Venezuelan city of Valencia for years.

Opponers of the opposition 's aid strategy have asked why themselves and their Colombian allies have not once distributed the supplies stored to the thousands of Venezuelans in trouble who' re unaware. were refugees in Cúcuta or what prevented them from allowing Venezuelans to cross directly to Colombia to collect help.

Some aid workers worry about the desire of the opposition to overthrow Maduro. exceed the need for help.

"One party is trying to gain political points while the other is trying not to lose them", Deixol Saavedra, a Venezuelan migrant who asked for food at Cucuta's aid warehouse in January. "What matters to them is power."

Although Saavedra, like most Venezuelans in the area and the chronic patients who interviewed the Time, Maduro blames largely for the blocking help. They denounced the fact that by denying that there is a crisis he condemns thousands to death.

Steffany Villamizar, 17, was sitting with a catheter in her neck during a dialysis session in February, surrounded by inflamed and dying patients. On television, on a state channel, President Maduro appeared then He visited a pharmaceutical factory and laughed with the ministers.

"Everything was very normal for them, he said, he made me angry."

By Anatoly Kurmanaev and Isayen Herrera. Collaborated with the report: Lorena Bornacelli

GML