|
 Missing dialysis treatment, which removes toxins that build up in
the blood of people who suffer kidney failure, leaves Lopez feeling
dizzy and nauseous. Like any chronic kidney patient, he could die if
he goes too long without treatment.
Unable to complete his treatment that day, Lopez had little choice
but to return home.
When he arrived, the power was out there as well.
"The impotence that I feel makes me want to cry," said Lopez, 45,
one of 11,000 Venezuelans whose dialysis treatment has been thrown
into disarray by a wave of blackouts in the oil-rich but
crisis-stricken South American country.
"Some people go to sleep while they are in treatment. I do not,
because I am scared I will never wake up."
Electricity has largely been restored to the capital city of Caracas
after two nation-wide power outages in March and April.
But many other parts of Venezuela now have power for only several
hours per day under a rationing plan put in effect by President
Nicolas Maduro.
Few places have been harder-hit than sweltering Maracaibo, the
country's second-largest city, which still experiences power cuts
lasting 10 hours or more per day. That has led to water shortages,
making it hard to provide the minimum 120 liters (32 gallons) of
water doctors say is needed for a full dialysis session.
Dialysis requires consistent supplies of power and water to provide
the recommended treatment of three or four hours, three times a
week.
Venezuela's public hospitals for years have provided free dialysis
treatment, thanks to abundant oil revenue and generous health-care
spending. But since the economy crashed along with oil prices in
2014, new equipment rarely arrives and the existing machines are not
maintained, doctors say.
Maduro says healthcare problems are caused by U.S. sanctions that
blocked funds in foreign bank accounts that could be used to pay for
imports of equipment and medicine. He says the recent power outages
are the result of Washington-backed sabotage of the electrical
system.
His adversaries say those problems were created by incompetence and
corruption, and that he has refused to recognize the severity of the
situation.
[to top of second column] |
The information ministry and the health ministry did not reply to
requests for comment.
Lesbia Avila said she woke up feeling ill one recent morning after
receiving just one hour and 40 minutes of treatment the prior day
due to lack of power and equipment shortages at her Maracaibo
clinic. She said she feels like she is choking when she does not
receive full treatment.
"I just ask God that if I die, it will not be of choking," said
Avila, 53, as she lay in a hammock at her home in a working class
neighborhood in western Maracaibo.
While speaking to a reporter, she turned pale and began to sweat.
Her husband, who was laid off from his job at a nearby auto parts
factory two months ago, took an old refrigerator drawer for her to
vomit into.
She said at the privately-owned dialysis center where she goes for
treatment, only 18 of 35 dialysis machines are working.
The situation is similar at the 136 state-owned dialysis clinics
across the country, said Carlos Marquez, the president of the
Venezuelan Nephrology Society. Many of the country's 1,600 machines
are not working, he said. The health ministry does not publish
figures.
Some private Maracaibo dialysis centers charge patients $70 for a
three-hour session, said 48-year-old kidney-disease patient Antonio
Briceno. That is equivalent to nearly a year of minimum wage.
"I should have been born rich to be able to buy myself a new
kidney," said Aidalis Guanipa, 25, who lives with her 83-year-old
grandmother in Maracaibo. They get by on her grandmother's pension
and from sales of homemade sweets.
"I have not had dialysis for two days because there has been no
electricity. I am scared."
Photo essay here: https://reut.rs/2LDtrsF
(Additional reporting by Mayela Armas and Vivian Sequera in Caracas;
Writing by Luc Cohen; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
