Eyewitness

Venezuela: Inside the hospital with no medicine

An elderly patient waits for a pacemaker
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By Stuart Ramsay, chief correspondent, in Caracas, Venezuela

A man sits at the end of his wife's hospital bed reading the bible. He has done this every day for a month. She is desperately ill.

He prays for divine intervention; in truth that is the best he can hope for because in Venezuelan hospitals today there is no medicine to speak of.

In fact, there is nothing.

A mother and her young daughter wait for treatment
Image: A mother and her young daughter wait for treatment

I visited one of the country's biggest hospitals in Caracas; a place I have been before.

It is 20 storeys high and has the capacity for 1,200 patients. They are looking after 170 - and looking after them is literal.

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They aren't being treated, there is nothing for them at all. They spend days and weeks just lying in bed while nurses try to care for them with nothing.

Staff at the hospital broke all the rules to get us inside. We had to film undercover and keep moving to avoid the detection of government guards.

Some of the beds were broken
Image: Some of the hospital's beds were broken

In one ward, I met a lady who had been looking after her mother here for three months.

"She keeps getting infections and is getting weaker," she told me, looking down at her motionless semi-comatose parent.

She and her family provide their mother with all her food and water and they, like everyone else we spoke too, hope that somehow she will improve.

There was no medicine in the hospital's drips
Image: Medicine was missing in the hospital's drips

Incredibly, they came here from another town where the hospital was actually worse.

The toilets in every ward are out of order, but you wouldn't want to use them anyway.

The basins are full of rubbish, the toilets are full of stinking liquid. The nurses try keeping the doors firmly closed to prevent the stench reaching too far into the ward. It doesn't work.

Patients bring empty bottles to fill with water to use the toilet
Image: Patients bring empty bottles to fill with water in order to use the toilet

Whole departments in the hospital have completely shut down, wards are abandoned and closed, in some there are rows of empty filthy beds where exhausted family members try to get some rest.

The old and the young - society's weakest - are here but there is no medicine to treat them.

The paediatric unit is actually a ward of small sick children, not an active, functioning medical unit.

A little girl waits for treatment for spine problems
Image: A little girl waits for treatment for spine problems

Our guides were very concerned about our filming in here with too many guards loitering in the corridors. But some mums were happy to speak, although not directly in front of their children. They walked away leaving their children lying in metal cots.

One mother, clearly very agitated with stress, told us that nobody is really sure what is wrong with her child.

She said that she had been asked to go out and find medicine so the staff could treat her daughter. She basically showed us a shopping list, not a prescription.

Relatives visit patients with no electricity in the hospital
Image: Relatives sit for days with patients

Just that list of emergency medicine would cost her 80,000 Bolivars. The monthly wage here is 18,000 Bolivars. It is hopelessly difficult for her.

The lack of medicine is quite extraordinary. Even a couple of years ago, when I visited, there was some.

Now, ward after ward - work station after work station - medicine cabinet after medicine cabinet are totally bare.

The paediatric ward has no electricity for lights
Image: The paediatric ward has no electricity for lighting

X-ray machines, dialysis rooms, operating rooms... they are closed off and dark.

Some entire floors are locked shut and abandoned.

This is what the opposition wants to highlight to the people of Venezuela, along with a promise that with international help they can turn this around in the long-term and in the short-term bring in tonnes of medical aid.

But this is threatening to provoke a clash between the government and the opposition, with the United States watching on and needling the government of Nicolas Maduro.

In the meantime, the patients spend another day of suffering in bed, hoping things will get better.