Chavez declares the state of emergency for the health system in Venezuela

[spanza]

Confirming that at least 2,000 (!) Barrio Adentro dispensaries have been abandoned by the administration..

Article in spanish
http://deportes.eluniversal.com/2009/09/20/pol_art_chavez-declaro-en-em_1574464.shtml

[Peace Patriot]

1. I'll wait for www.venezuelanalysis.com on this one. I have no reason whatever to truth

El (non-) Universal. (Might as well be Faux News, if you know what I mean.)

[EFerrari]

3. Mr. Panza is apparently out of windmills this morning

and decided to spam the forum instead. :)

[spanza]

4. Mr ? is apparently out of arguments today..

and decided to call spam anything he doesn't agree with.
Thanks god he's a progressive, otherwise he'd be a fanatic skinhead...:)

[EFerrari]

9. It's she, she'd be a fanatic skinhead. Enjoy your stay at DU.

[Bacchus39]

13. that's her MO. Chavez is god. welcome aboard,

keep these posts up and you'll be fortunate like me and get ignored.

[spanza]

14. I'd just like to get some arguments from her

but she only wants to share her point of view with people who agree with her..
I'll keep on trying:)

[spanza]

5. So you want the official version

of the government.. judge and jury situation?
I'd like to see it too but I'm afraid they usually don't talk too much about this kind of stuff.
El Universal was only quoting what he said in front of cameras..
Maybe you should go to Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias.

[EFerrari]

10. Myself I like to get breaking newz from sock puppets.

[spanza]

12. "..only quoting what he said in front of cameras"

Cameras from the venezuelan state TV (canal 8)...

Chavez: We have to recognize that 2,000 of our Barrio Adentro dispensaries have been abandoned
EFerrari: NO! that's a lie! it can't be true, the Revolution must be perfect!!!

[Braulio]

6. Venezuelan public hospital conditions

According to my sources, Venezuelan public hospitals are terrible. Not only do they lack medicines and equipment, medical personnel fear for their lives, because it is common for robbers to enter hospitals and steal and even rob at gun point. Also, Chavez was very upset when his side lost the elections in many large provinces, and he has maneuvered to cut off funding, or in some cases had federal authorities take over the hospitals - without considering the consequences. All in all, it seems Venezuela is a very poorly managed nation at this time.

[spanza]

7. The lack of state.

In the strange parallel system Chavez has built in Venezuela, the most striking result is the lack of state. The situation was already bad before him since the IMF reforms in 1989 and I thought it was hard to make it worse when Chavez became president.

In the parallel system, you have the traditional state health/education which is getting poorer year after year and the new party health/education which is used as a vitrine and receives good funding. The problem is that people can't have any complex operations nor women can deliver in one of the Barrio Adentro dispensaries. For serious things, people need to go to public hospitals that are underfunded, ill equipped and don't have enough personal to provide a decent public service. Even the government recognizes the problem.

Protests and demonstrations in poor areas concerning this particular issue started in 2005, when some people died at Magallanes hospital because it ran out of oxygen. The situation got worse this year when the maternity Concepcion Palacios (the biggest in the world during the 70's) became saturated and women started delivering in improvised camps in the street in front of it. The answer from our president was to humiliate his health minister during a live transmission of Alo Presidente and to threaten he'd nationalize private clinics. The state health system is really bad and the party health system is degrading, while the government accuses the doctors and the administrators of sabotaging the state system.

Chavez's party lost the elections in the 4 most populated states of the country (Federal District of Caracas, Zulia, Miranda and Carabobo). In Miranda, the biggest state of the capital area, he immediately seized the responsibilities the new governor had in this very symbolic sector because he knew they would do better than the corrupted army man politician that was in charge before him (Diosdado Cabello). In Caracas FD, the armed chavista militias seized the City Hall when people voted for a new opposition mayor. Chavez answered by closing the building, cutting the budget and appointing an unelected chavista 'Chief of Government of the Federal District' himself (Jacqueline Farias), transmitting to her the budget and responsibilities that he took from the elected mayor.

[Braulio]

11. It's shameful, isn't it?

I understand he's spending a lot of money buying weapons at the same time the hospitals fall apart.

[Bacchus39]

2. the administration abandoning the needy, shameful

all talk and no action unless he is nationalizing something.

[ChangoLoa]

8. I saw the TV transmission in canal 8

more or less ten days ago. finally chavez admit the evidence!
I hope that now he will give money to the real hospitals although they are not structures of ideology and venezuelans work inside