Over half Venezuela’s doctors and quarter of nurses have left since 2012: NGOs

More than half Venezuela’s doctors have been forced to flee the country’s crushing economic and political crisis, according to a report by health NGOs released Thursday. “Between 2012 and 2017, 22,000 Venezuelan doctors migrated” — 55 percent of the total 39,000 doctors registered by the PanAmerican Health Organization in 2014, the report said. Some 6,000 nurses — nearly a quarter of Venezuela’s total — also left the country during the same period. Nearly 2 million people have emigrated since 2015, the U.N. said, adding that around 5,000 people are leaving the country daily. The NGO report — “The right to health, the complex humanitarian emergency in Venezuela” — was endorsed by 12 non-governmental organizations for patient rights. More…