Dying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuela’s Failing Hospitals

By NICHOLAS CASEYMAY 15, 2016


The New York Times

BARCELONA, Venezuela — By morning, three newborns were already dead.

The day had begun with the usual hazards: chronic shortages of antibiotics, intravenous solutions, even food. Then a blackout swept over the city, shutting down the respirators in the maternity ward.

Doctors kept ailing infants alive by pumping air into their lungs by hand for hours. By nightfall, four more newborns had died.

“The death of a baby is our daily bread,” said Dr. Osleidy Camejo, a surgeon in the nation’s capital, Caracas, referring to the toll from Venezuela’s collapsing hospitals.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez dies from cancer

By Andrew Cawthorne and Daniel Wallis

CARACAS | Tue Mar 5, 2013 6:35pm EST

(Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez died on Tuesday after a two-year battle with cancer, ending 14 years of tumultuous rule that made the socialist leader a hero for the poor but a hate figure to his opponents.

The flamboyant 58-year-old had undergone four operations in Cuba for a cancer that was first detected in his pelvic region in mid-2011. His last surgery was on December 11 and he had not been seen in public since.