Ever since socialists have taken control in Venezuela things keep going from bad to worse. They have shortages of every day necessities like food and toilet paper. Beer is now a luxury and electricity is rationed through rolling blackouts. It’s a living hell for the healthy, and for those in need of medical care it’s even worse. This is what happens when people elect politicians who promise that the Government will take care of them.
The economic crisis in this country has exploded into a public health emergency, claiming the lives of untold numbers of Venezuelans. It is just part of a larger unraveling here that has become so severe it has prompted President Nicolás Maduro to impose a state of emergency and has raised fears of a government collapse.
Hospital wards have become crucibles where the forces tearing Venezuela apart have converged. Gloves and soap have vanished from some hospitals. Often, cancer medicines are found only on the black market. There is so little electricity that the government works only two days a week to save what energy is left.
At the University of the Andes Hospital in the mountain city of Mérida, there was not enough water to wash blood from the operating table. Doctors preparing for surgery cleaned their hands with bottles of seltzer water.
“It is like something from the 19th century,” said Dr. Christian Pino, a surgeon at the hospital.
The figures are devastating. The rate of death among babies under a month old increased more than a hundredfold in public hospitals run by the Health Ministry, to justDying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuela’s Failing Hospitals – The New York Times over 2 percent in 2015 from 0.02 percent in 2012, according to a government report provided by lawmakers.
Read the whole thing and look at the pictures. The conditions are deplorable – broken equipment, cockroaches, lack of supplies, disgusting beds, shortages of medication, people dying – it’s heartbreaking. Of course, as William Teach pointed out, the article doesn’t really mention how this is a socialist system. The closest it comes to that is noting how the leftists controlling the presidency are feuding with opponents in the congress who are trying to get international aide. But then it fails to note that socialist societies aren’t capable of sustaining themselves.
Americans pining for socialism argue that we should look at small European countries that are socialist instead of Venezuela, Cuba, China or North Korea for inspiration. But the countries they mention aren’t completely socialist, they don’t have to spend much money on defense because they are under the protection of the United States, and their systems are unsustainable. The problems with the British and other socialized health systems have been well documented. And those are countries that are much smaller and have far fewer people than we have here in the United States.
I also wonder if Pope Francis has condemned the Venezuelan government for causing so much human suffering. He claims to love the poor, but rather than coming up with solutions to eradicate poverty he romanticizes it, which doesn’t make any sense. Then again, nobody is making much sense these days.
I see the images and read the stories of socialism and I thank God I don’t have to live under those horrible conditions. I just don’t understand how anyone can be for that, or how Republicans can vote for guy who promises that the government is going to take care of everyone’s health care. That’s how it starts.
This post first appeared on The Lonely Conservative – Observations From A Co, please read the originial post: here
