Malnutrition, starvation strike Venezuelan children; doctors stealing hospital food to feed families as government collapse accelerates

Friday, June 17, 2016 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
Tags: Venezuela, starvation, food shortage

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(NaturalNews) Since 2000, the government of Venezuela has adopted new social programs in an attempt to provide food, housing, and education to everyone in the country. These social programs, dubbed the Bolivarian missions, attempted to provide free things for everyone, to help the poor and bring equality to all.

While the words of the mission sounded great, the central economic planning and redistribution tactics to achieve the goals are actually destroying the country today, plunging people into deeper poverty, rationing, mass starvation, and death.

In 2000, Venezuela adopted the United Nation's Millenial Development Goals in an attempt to solve complex "inequality" problems. The government adopted the mindset of democratic socialism, promising free stuff, social justice, and social welfare. As Chavez's rose to power, his supporters called the plans "citizen- and worker-managed governance."

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations has called "the global mobilization behind the Millennium Development Goals...the most successful anti-poverty movement in history." However, as events unfold in Venezuela, the central economic planning, social engineering, and redistribution of resources has caused the severe issues of hunger to worsen. Inflation has gripped the country, and families are now rationing their food like never before.

Venezuela's doctors now taking food from hospitals to feed their starving families

As the economy unwinds, doctors are now stealing hospital food to feed their families. The government-run hospitals have basically been treating patients who are going hungry. Since the government controls the distribution of food through state owned supermarkets, the government-run hospitals are given first priority for food supplies. According to reports, doctors are now stealing that food and taking it home to malnourished family members, including newborns.

"Children under five months of age come in here with diarrhea and when the parents are asked what the child has been eating, they say mostly rice cream because they can't get milk," one hospital worker said. The San Felipe Central Hospital reports of children being brought in fainting from malnourishment.

The hospital system receives first priority for food supplies, yet they cannot keep enough medical supplies on hand. Important supplies like oxygen tanks are in high demand but there aren't enough to go around. Products that ensure basic hygiene and cleanliness are scarce. Hospitals have to ration trash bags and cleaning products. The hospitals are simply running out of money for basic medical supplies. And the food the hospital does provide is limited and not capable of helping patients recuperate. "No chicken, no beef, no fish, none of that," one report noted. "The patients get cheese, rice, fruit, but nothing that they need for recuperating."

On June 7th, El Nacional reported that the Ministry of Health has run of out of food altogether, leaving patients to starve on hospital beds. In fact, according to Radio Fe y Alegria, two children died from malnutrition in la Guajir,. Local media also reported on the deaths of an eight-month-old, Ligia Gonzalez and two-month-old Elver Gonzalez, two babies who were both severely malnourished.

According to a survey conducted by Venebarometro, 90 percent of the people are now eating less food than in previous years. As the Venezeuala economy implodes under the pressure of social programs, 89.7 percent of the people in the survey describe that they don't even have the money to clothe themselves anymore.

Sources include:

http://es.panampost.com
http://https://panampost.com
http://mdgs.un.org
http://venezuelanalysis.com/basicfacts