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WORLD NEWSThursday 10 March 2016
Venezuelans make taxing trek to seek health care in Colombia
HANNAH DREIER Colombian national Carmenza Conde helps her husband Oscar Lopez with his dialysis treatment Patients stood in line for
Associated Press at their home in Urena, Venezuela. Lopez receives his medicines from Colombia after Venezuelan hours last week only to find
URENA, Venezuela (AP) — authorities allowed the monthly doses to be brought across the border so that he may receive the National Guard had
They gather by the hun- his treatment at home. Most have to apply for a one-day pass the morning of their appointments. added new requirements.
dreds at border bridges be- The director of the permis-
fore dawn, in wheelchairs (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) sions center was as out-
and surgical masks. They raged as they were.
clutch X-rays and bundles his medical records and tion-leaning pharmaceuti- He wakes with his roosters “They’re playing with peo-
of medical records they death certificate show. cal association. before dawn and braces ple’s lives, making grand-
hope will persuade Vene- “This never would have In San Cristobal, the Ven- himself for an interrogation fathers, people who can
zuelan officials to let them happened if not for the ezuelan city closest to Ure- at the border checkpoint barely walk, come and
join the few allowed to closure. It was day after na, six infants died during a despite having the proper wait like this all day,” cen-
cross into Colombia each day of fatigue for him,” said single week in February be- papers, and then the long ter director Luis Hernando
day. his mother, Elvira Cubides, cause of a lack of respira- walk across the 1,050-foot said, drawing cheers.
Six months after Venezu- wiping away tears. “This tory machines. This month, (320-meter) bridge span- The National Guard says
ela’s socialist government country has lost its heart.” a congressman accused ning the Tachira river. smuggling of price-con-
shut its border with Co- Perhaps the only thing the city’s largest hospital “You feel like you’re filled trolled gasoline and food
lombia to fight smuggling, worse than slogging to a of using expired drugs. Pri- with liquid, and your legs into Colombia, where it
thousands of patients con- clinic in Colombia is slog- vate clinics run their dialysis don’t want to move. But can be sold at much high-
tinue to make an arduous ging through the Venezu- machines in three shifts to you have to walk or you er prices, has fallen 70 per-
trek to get treatment in Co- elan health care system, accommodate as many won’t get your treatment,” cent since President Nico-
lombian hospitals. which is beset by the eco- people as possible, and still he said. las Maduro declared a
The closure has reshaped nomic chaos ravaging the have no room for new pa- As a terminal patient, Leal state of emergency along
daily life for everyone country as a whole. Pub- tients. Noe Leal, a 66-year- was able to get permanent the 1,400-mile (2,260-ki-
along the frontier, but for lic hospitals here no lon- old taxi driver in Urena permission to cross. Most lomber) border last August.
sick Venezuelans hoping ger have consistent run- whose kidneys are failing, Venezuelans have to ap- Officials on the Colombian
to escape their country’s ning water and electricity, shuns San Cristobal’s cha- ply for a one-day pass the side also say the tide of
collapsed medical system, and medical supplies are otic hospitals, preferring morning of their appoint- cheap Venezuelan goods
the consequences have scarce. The country is mak- instead to grapple with of- ments. has slowed.
been painful and some- ing due with 20 percent of ficialdom as he crosses the Officials issue about 200 Before the border was shut,
times deadly. the medications it requires, border three times a week medical passes a day for more than 100,000 people
Dany Cubides, a 33-year- according to the opposi- for treatment in Cucuta. this town of 40,000 people. daily used the two main
old dialysis patient, col- crossings in the region that
lapsed early this year on includes Urena, according
the bridge connecting this to the Venezuelan gov-
town of brightly painted ernment. That number has
shacks with the Colombian shrunk to just 3,000 a day,
city of Cucuta as he made nonprofit groups working in
his way back home after the region say.
treatment. In addition to the sick, Ven-
Before the border closing, ezuela allows students,
the trip had taken him 30 some workers and any
minutes on a motorcycle. Colombians wishing to self-
But vehicles are no longer deport to cross.
allowed to pass between Parents leading small chil-
the two countries, and pa- dren in school uniforms
tients who get special per- and sleepy undergradu-
mission to cross must do so ates join the sick in trying
on foot. Cubides’ trips to a to get through the barbed-
dialysis center in Cucuta wire checkpoints early. By
turned into multi-hour or- 8 a.m., confusion reigns.
deals that left him too tired On one recent morning, a
to eat dinner. He gave up National Guard officer told
his job as a city gardener. a family hoping to enroll
Then, one hot afternoon their daughter in a Colom-
shortly after New Year’s bian high school that they
Day, he stumbled and would have to go to a dif-
fell on the bridge. He was ferent crossing. Asked why,
dead by the time he ar- he responded, “Because I
rived at a Cucuta hospital, say so.”q
