The Brutal Reality of Venezuela’s Healthcare Collapse

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Welcome my new and regular readers to my blog.

The topic for today is doctors on strike, and the truth is that talking about this in a country like Venezuela is really something very painful because the crisis that we live in the Venezuelan health system truly represents one of the biggest health collapses in the world, and this has profound implications for nurses, doctors and of course for patients.

I am going to analyze in the best way with data, facts, information and show you currently what is happening with the Venezuelan health system and the situation.

As I see things, the current situation of the health sector in Venezuela in terms of what are the working conditions for medical personnel: starting with the part of the salaries, they make the salaries ridiculously unsustainable.

A doctor here in Venezuela earns around two minimum salaries which is the equivalent of 5.7 dollars a month for the year 2024, and of course this is not enough to support a family basket which is around, if it is a family of three people well the family basket for a 3 person gropu should currently be around 1,200 dollars monthly and I think I am short, right?

So the doctors, apart from the work they have in the government health institution, they also have to have several informal jobs.

This on the one hand. On the other hand the scarcity of medicines where there is an 88% shortage of essential medicines and a 79% of supplies such as needles, surgical material, alcohol, gauze sutures, things as essential as this are missing in hospitals.

So the doctors have to go shopping or use equipment that is already old, obsolete – for example, shoe covers like surgical hats. So this is very serious.

On the other hand, there is the part of the insecurity: there are robberies, shootings occur in emergencies because the gangs of criminals go to these places to justice the people who have been left alive in their mess.

So for example, to give you an example here in the university hospital of Caracas, doctors and nurses avoid going down the stairs because they are afraid of being robbed by the members of these gangs. So this is one of the very difficult realities of the health sector here in Venezuela.

This is very serious.

Talking about the employees, the doctors and the nurses – if we talk about the patients, there is a 31% increase in general mortality for 2015 because they do not have antibiotics, there are no physiological solutions, there are no mechanical ventilators or mechanical respirators for the sick.

So patients who have diabetes or serious infections die because they do not have how to have the treatment.

Apart from this, diseases have reappeared that would no longer have to reappear like measles, diphtheria, malaria because there are many failures in prevention. There is a 49.8% of Venezuelans with serious health problems who have not received attention in 2024, and we have an alarming figure of only 7% of emergency services that are working. So it is very serious.

79% of hospitals do not have current water services. 55% of hospitals have daily electrical failures.

Dialysis machines are paralyzed because there is no electricity in hospitals and patients die because they do not receive dialysis.

Patients who are in intensive care die because the lung respirators have no way to be activated. 14% of intensive care units have been closed due to maintenance failures.

So the problems that there are on the part of patients are quite serious.

Now let's see the following: make a medical strike as a solution for all this.

Well, on the one hand the protests at an international level they can pressure bodies like the UN to intervene. In 2024, post-electoral repression generated worldwide criticism. The protests of 2017 and 2019, which were very difficult years for Venezuela, called attention to the crisis.

For example, the so-called Bolivarian celebration of immunization 2025 appeared after many years of complaints because there was a shortage of vaccines. Then something was achieved. This would be in favor.

But there are many risks and many limitations in a system that has half of the hospitals that are not working. Making a medical strike would paralyze services that are already bad and would increase the number of deaths that can be avoided.

And the government here in Venezuela uses tactics called Tum Tum operatives which are based on massive detentions or criminalization by law against non-governmental organizations. For example, here in Venezuela in 2024 passports were canceled to critics and 1,900 opponents were detained including doctors, nurses and medical personnel who are against this.

And on the other hand, the government attributes the hospital crisis to economic wars or sanctions and rejects international aid. Then making a strike will obviously be labeled by the government as a sabotage.

I believe that the solution to all this is to ally with international organizations like the Red Cross to be able to get medicines to hospitals and patients and try to avoid that narrative of foreign intervention so that the government does not use this in its favor, and build community support networks so that the supplies are distributed clandestinely because it is the only way to get out of all this problem.

I believe that the strike – in truth a medical strike in Venezuela carries very serious and catastrophic risks in the short term – but if nothing is done the system will definitely collapse.

So I think the strike should be for a few days in terms of duration, partially stop the hospitals and support with these volunteer networks for emergencies and look for these international alliances to get out of this problem.

But basically all this is summarized in the fact that the money that goes to the hospitals comes into the hands of the corrupt and supplies are stolen, supplies are lost and none of these things work. So it is also a problem at the level of corruption that must be improved.

And well, this is what I can tell you, is my opinion about this interesting issue of the medical strike here in Venezuela.

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