‘Like doctors in a war’: inside Venezuela’s healthcare crisis

Dr María Gonzales cannot recall the exact moment when she realised Venezuela’s health crisis had enveloped her hospital, the Luis Razetti in the Caribbean coastal city of Barcelona. It may have been during a surge in cases of scabies, a skin infection that ought to be easily prevented with soap, water and disinfectant. It could have been her first sight of an emaciated child, something she had only previously seen in medical books or documentaries about famines in Africa. Or perhaps it was when she found herself prescribing a 40-minute cold shower because the pharmacy had run out of anti-fever drugs. More…