Pre-existing crisis in Venezuela worsens impact of earthquakes on health

Venezuela was already fragile long before two consecutive earthquakes shook the country last Wednesday (24).

The effects of more than a decade of government mismanagement and economic sanctions are evident at the Dr. José Manuel de Los Ríos Children's Hospital in Caracas, where doctor Huníades Urbina-Medina can only care for four children at a time in the intensive care unit.

"Before, we could receive up to 10 patients in the ICU," said Urbina-Medina. "But for at least 10 years, we haven't had enough staff, we haven't had enough medicine, we haven't had enough mechanical ventilators."

One of the four patients being treated is a 12-year-old girl who was crushed under several floors of a collapsed building. She is in agony, with numerous life-threatening injuries.

Approximately 100 children have been treated in other hospital units since last week, a fraction of those injured in the earthquakes. The Venezuelan government has been updating the number of earthquake victims only gradually. Currently, the number is more than 1,700 dead and more than five thousand injured.

On Monday, Ecuadorian rescuers said they had pulled a 12-year-old boy alive from the rubble in La Guaira state, but rescues are expected to become increasingly rare now that the so-called "golden window" for survival after an earthquake has passed.

The United States Geological Survey said there is a high probability that the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes killed tens of thousands of people.

We may never know the real number of victims; when a similar tragedy struck the state of La Guaira in 1999, the government never released an official death toll.

The government extended school closures, and preliminary information suggests that 432 schools in Caracas alone were damaged. Schools that were not damaged are among the buildings being used as temporary shelters for the thousands of homeless people.

Health in crisis
Urbina-Medina told CNN that no hospital in Venezuela was prepared for an emergency as large as last week's two earthquakes.

"No hospital in Venezuela is prepared for day to day life," said Urbana-Medina. "But with this catastrophe, the situation gets worse because we don't have enough medicines, personnel and equipment here in Venezuela."

Before the earthquakes, the government generally defended its national health system as robust, attributing deficiencies to sanctions imposed by the United States.

Other doctors who spoke to CNN had similar complaints. Many hospitals are damaged, reported Dr. Andrés Cortiz, volunteer with Healing Venezuela, a British charity that provides free medical care in the country.

Cortiz stated that eight hospitals in Caracas were forced to close and that the rest are overloaded with patients and lack basic cleaning materials, such as bleach and disinfectant.

Other problems predate the earthquake. As Venezuela sank deeper into crisis over the past decade due to the socialist government's mismanagement and punishing U.S. economic sanctions, Urbana-Medina saw many qualified medical professionals leave the country in search of better opportunities abroad.

This same brain drain affected Venezuelan schools, which were already suffering from a severe teacher shortage before the earthquake.

Other health professionals have been forced to leave the country more recently. Shortly after the US arrest of then-President Nicolás Maduro in January, Venezuela ended the long-running Cuban medical mission in the country, cutting off a critical resource for underserved communities.

Venezuela's health system is overwhelmed after earthquakes, says WHO

Hope amid searches
It took 24 hours after the two earthquakes for the smell of death to emanate from the ruins of Caracas. The odor of decomposing bodies now wafts from collapsed buildings throughout the city.

It's unbearable, but it doesn't discourage the families of those still trapped under the rubble. Many camped along the edge of mounds of crushed concrete and rebar, awaiting news of their relatives.

Mirella Herrera is among them. She waits every day outside the destroyed building where her son lived, looking for any sign of him, his wife and their children.

"It's maddening," she said, crying. "Just as I feel desperate and anguished, I walk, stay hydrated and wonder how they must be. If they're still alive, they must be desperate to get out of there."

A whiteboard near the site displays a diagram of the building and its eight floors. Family names are written on each floor. The count of dead, rescued and missing is also included.

At least 12 people have died in the building so far; three were rescued and 20 remain under the rubble. In the last two days, none have been found.

Usually, after a disaster like this, the next three days are the golden window for finding survivors. Humans can normally only survive three days without water. Five days after the earthquakes, Herrera said she still holds out hope.

"I feel like my son is strong," she said. "I feel like he's waiting for me, that he knows I'm here taking care of him. That's why I don't want to give up."

Waiting for the green light
In the early hours of Monday (29), Venezuela woke up to yet another earthquake. It was small, a 4.6 magnitude aftershock, but significant enough to send people out of their homes and temporary shelters and onto the streets in their pajamas.

The government was quick to claim that the aftershock caused no damage, but that was of little consolation. Even those whose homes were not destroyed last week cannot return.

Cracks remained on the sides of many buildings that remained standing. Also on the sides of many buildings, there are posters of former presidents Maduro and Hugo Chávez, a reminder of those who built some of the precarious houses that collapsed.

Soledad Campos Aparicio, 78, hugged her dog tightly as she waited outside her building in Caracas on Monday.

The building next to hers, an apartment complex called La Petúnia, had collapsed in the earthquakes, and now authorities wouldn't allow her or her neighbors to return home. Heavy machinery surrounded the site, with rescuers clearing the rubble.

Some municipalities are using a "traffic light" code to indicate the level of damage to a building. Green means habitable, yellow means moderately damaged, and red means the building is unsafe.

"We come and go, but they don't let us stay," Campos Aparicio told CNN. She really wants to go back to her apartment. "I fell, passed out and hurt my knees. I'm not feeling well, but I'm alone."

Understand how the strength of earthquakes is measured

Source: CNN