Dr David Bratt
Most people do not know that I attended medical school in Venezuela, graduating from the Central University of Venezuela. Unable to get a job because of his many conflicts with British personnel at UBOT in Point Fortin, where we lived, not in the British-run camp, but in the segregated "Trinidadian" area, my father was forced to seek employment as an oil driller in Venezuela. We soon followed but I was sent back to boarding school in Mt St Benedict to get a good “English” education, as my father put it. After graduation but without money to get into Mona, I sought and received a free medical education from the Venezuelan Government of the moment, for which I express my eternal gratitude. I, therefore, have a keen interest in what has been happening in Venezuela, the land, and the city, “Caracas “Bella Caracas”, as the song says, that gave me my profession, my wife, my first child, and many friends, most of whom have fled the horror that is the communist inspired dictatorship that governs Venezuela, at present.
Above all, I refer to the tragedy of Venezuela's children, their mothers, the poor and the old, the weak of society, who now bear the brunt of the suffering endured by millions of ordinary Venezuelans. Since 2015 over three million Venezuelans, ten per cent of the population, have abandoned their country. Millions have voted with their feet, literally in some cases, walking out of their houses at midnight and trekking hundreds of miles to the border and farther, with their meagre possessions, children and old folk, on their backs.
This is a humanitarian disaster, larger than that of Syria, that both ours and the Venezuelan Government refuse to accept.
The true tragedy of Venezuela's children, some of whom are here in T&T, has just been described in last week's Lancet and what a terrible thing Mr Chavez has done to his beloved people. With love like that who needs enemies? Who needs the enmity of the USA when incompetence and drug-induced corruption reduces your health system to a state of collapse? A collapse that is denied by Venezuelan officials by ceasing to make vital statistics data publicly available. A strict secrecy policy has ruled public health institutions, especially since 2013. Data sources are no longer updated nor publicly available. There is evidence that health data are still being collected but actively suppressed by the Government.
However, in the past two years, the Pan-American Health Organization has issued several epidemiological alerts reporting malaria, measles and diphtheria outbreaks in Venezuela.
Between 2007 and 2009, the Venezuelan Ministry of Health did not provide vaccines against polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type b to children younger than five years. Based on the latest figures available, they did not vaccinate nearly 20 per cent of children in 2010. The situation has since worsened.
This raises the question, what is the immunisation status of the Venezuelan refugee children in T&T? Are we being set up for outbreaks of disease?
Infant mortality ie, the number of children who die before they are one year old is the most sensitive indicator of a country's health status. Venezuela is the only country in South America that has risen back to the infant mortality rate levels of the 1990s.
Thousands of babies have needlessly died while their government denies a crisis.
The accompanying commentary in the Lancet says it well: “Venezuela's health care system collapse is the outcome of failed governance and misguided macroeconomic policies.”
And ends with the following damming conclusion: “Poor governance is at the heart of the problem. And it is poor governance that is literally killing the youngest Venezuelans. Much more regional and global pressure must be brought to bear on the current government to end the denial of the health collapse, rein in hyperinflation, and begin to address the policy failures that are stealing Venezuelans' futures.”
Let those who breathlessly think of “non-alignment”, as “not doing”, deal with the consequences.