In Venezuela, the hospitals have little to no medicine left. The number of medical equipment in care facilities remain sparse. Their medical facilities are crumbling, with some completely abandoned.

The economic crisis in the country led the nation into a downward spiral. Essential services such as gas, clean water, fresh food, and medicine are suffering under the increasingly authoritarian government under President Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuela's collapse has already claimed an untold number of lives. Gloves and soap have completely vanished from some hospitals. Cancer medicines are found only on the black market where they are sold at a mind-boggling price. Pregnant women are left to fend for themselves, leading to hundreds of deaths involving mothers and their unborn children.


State Secret

Venezuela's public health system was once considered the best in Latin America. However, it started to collapse in 2016, crippled by a broken economy. Maternity wards are left without access to critical birth tools-including vital sign monitors, ventilators, and sanitation systems. Due to the lack of equipment, doctors are forced to turn women away.

Pregnant women often find themselves travelling long distances and visiting countless hospital over the course of two days. They are refused services for lack of sterile tools and incubators. Doctors place their hands inside the mothers to measure their dilation, only to apologize and show them out. "We can't help you," they said.

In recent years, about half of the country's healthcare workers have left, desperate to save their own families. In Venezuela, they made less than $10 a month, a salary that was too small to live on.

The Venezuelan government stopped releasing data on women's and infants' deaths in 2016. According to that year's report, infant mortality rate shot up by 30 percent in a single year. Maternal deaths also saw a dramatic rise of 65 percent. Newer reports were kept a state secret since.


Seltzer Water

The government has neglected its electric and water services. Hospitals often experience hours of power outages. In some hospitals, water is running extremely low. Doctors use seltzer water to clean their hands while preparing for surgery on a still bloody operating table.

Many die on the way to hospitals as ambulances lack oxygen tanks needed to sustain breathing and life. Hospitals have no functioning X-ray or dialysis machines. Patients lie in their own pools of blood when bed spaces are unavailable. Most go to hospitals healthy but leave as a corpse.

In 2016, the opposition declared a humanitarian crisis and passed a law that would allow the country to receive international aid to improve the health care system. President Nicolas Maduro, however, went on state television to reject the offer which he believes in a bid to undermine his authority.

In many of his speeches, he touts the country's healthcare system as one of the best in Latin America. "There is nothing like it," he said. He acknowledged it is facing challenges but claims it is "doing well." He also encouraged women to have multiple children "for the good of the country."


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