Venezuela's Socialized Medical System In Collapse

In my blog, Who Are the Tea Party?,  I mention that Leftists are ruining this country.  Of course they don't see it that way.  If you need  proof that socialist policies, those espoused by Obama and Hollywood movie stars, are disastrous and harm more people then they help----then just look at Venezuela.

Sick people in Venezuela are now dying in droves due to massive shortages and mismanagement of the country's socialized medical system. As in North Korea, there are nearly no medical supplies or working medical equipment available to treat people.  And some 50% of doctors have quit the medical profession during Chavez's terms in office.  All of this failure has occurred during a period of booming world oil prices that have benefited Venezuela. 

Chavez and Maduro made political careers of promises to lift the poor through socialism, ie., central planning and wealth distribution.  Instead, their socialist policies have created a nightmare with inflation running at 50% per annum and shortages of, well, just about everything: car parts, toilet paper, milk, medical supplies and nearly everything else.  Now ordinary people are paying the ultimate price for their manifesto.

Add Venezuela to the long list of malfunctioning economies ruined by Leftists.  

From an Associated Press article "Doctors Say Venezuela's Healthcare in Collapse,"

"I feel like I've been abandoned," Gonzalez, 37, tells a bright-eyed hospital psychologist trying to boost her morale. Her right eye is swollen by glaucoma diagnosed two years ago but left untreated when she had trouble getting an appointment.

The country's 1999 constitution guarantees free universal health care to Venezuelans, who sit on the world's largest proven oil reserves. President Nicolas Maduro's government insists it's complying. Yet of the country's 100 fully functioning public hospitals, nine in 10 have just 7 percent of the supplies they need

Almost everything needed to mend and heal is in critically short supply: needles, syringes and paraffin used in biopsies to diagnose cancer; drugs to treat it; operating room equipment; X-ray film and imaging paper; blood and the reagents needed so it can be used for transfusions.

Last month, the government suspended organ donations and transplants. At least 70 percent of radiotherapy machines, precisely what Gonzalez will need once her tumor is removed, are now inoperable in a country with 19,000 cancer patients- meaning fewer than 5,000 can be treated, said Dr. Douglas Natera, president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation.

But Gonzalez was an ardent supporter of Chavez and she always voted for him. Unfortunately, this goes to show how socialist and populist rhetoric captures the imagination but how their policies hurt the very people that they say they are trying to help.  Why can't people see the connection; that their votes result in their worsening conditions?  

Do you think that any of the black leaders and Hollywood movie stars, who supported Chavez,  ever learn anything?  Never!  Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, Naomi Campbell, Sean Penn and Oliver Stone all admired and respected and even hugged Chavez.  I'm sure they still support Maduro even though Chavez's socialist policies are literally killing thousands of people and ruining life in their country.  And don't forget about all the black leaders, like Al Sharpton, Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters, who welcomed Fidel Castro with thunderous applause in Harlem.  And add Louis Farrakhan to the list of black leaders courting the enemies of America.  Farrakhan recently met with President Rouhani in New York and was "friends" with Ahmadinejad.

Leftists will ruin this country if you let them.