VENEZUELA : HEALTH CARE REVOLUTION.

POSTED BY: Howard
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 02:11
VIEWED: 8994
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HOWARD

Sunday, October 16, 2005 4:22 AM

"I love freedom of speech just as much as you, but I hope that you will post messages that are at least somewhat civil and in good taste."

I fully agree!! The above sentiment is excellent.

Here is another well written, clear and inspirational account of the positive efforts for humanity being made by the government of Venezuela under the leadership of President Hugo Chavez. Who is working hard to undo the damage and injustice done to his country and region by former regimes that operated only for the benefit of the haves never the have-nots. That is now in the process of changing thanks to the Bolivarian revolution.

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VENEZUELA: HEALTH CARE REVOLUTION.

Author: W. T. Whitney Jr.
10/13/05 10:39

In late August President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela announced a new stage in his country’s fight for health care. The government will spend $2.5 billion. “The first and most important use [of the money] is to purchase necessary equipment, the most modern in the world,” said Chavez. “That’s Barrio Adentro III (‘Inside the neighborhood’): a hospital revolution.”

A revolution may be what’s necessary to make good on health care as a human right. As Fidel Castro declared in 1959, “The peasant’s children were allowed to die, because there were no medicines or doctors for them. Peasants’ wives were allowed to die because there was often neither medicine nor doctors for them. … In rescuing the peasants, the revolution is taking its first step toward making itself a true democracy, a democracy without slaves.”

Health care is very much on the agenda for democratic change unfolding in Venezuela. Utilizing Cuban doctors and expertise, plus oil money, Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution is on the road toward a new era in health services.

Venezuela’s poor, about 80 percent of the population, are probably better off than Cuban peasants were back in 1959. Theoretically, two-thirds of the Venezuelans have access to health services under social security, and Venezuelan infant mortality rates and life expectancy are better than those of many other Latin American nations.

But for the majority, health care has remained unavailable. Many rural villages and isolated settlements are far removed from facilities. Privatization has closed public health facilities and upped the price of services. Until recently only 3 percent of the gross national product went toward health care, whereas most industrialized nations spend 8 percent to 10 percent. Physicians are in short supply.

Of Venezuela’s 55,000 doctors, 10,000 do not work and 22,000 are public health physicians, many of them working part-time. Cuba has sent 20,000 doctors and dentists to Venezuela in exchange for inexpensive Venezuelan oil at the rate of 90,000 barrels per day. Venezuela pays the Cuban doctors $210 per month for food and transportation and Cuba provides their families at home with $750 every month.

For two years, as a first step, the Chavez government has been encouraging communities in poor and remote areas to build their own health centers and has arranged for Cuban doctors to staff them. Under Barrio Adentro I, over 8,000 such centers now offer primary care, health education, and prevention.

The communities have carried out surveys to determine local health needs and have developed comprehensive health care plans. The centers dispense free medicines provided by Cuba.

On June 10, President Chavez introduced Barrio Adentro II. The government will build 600 new diagnostic centers throughout Venezuela, complete with emergency departments, laboratories and operating rooms. Some of the new facilities will offer specialty care and ambulance services. About 1,200 centers for rehabilitation, physical therapy, acupuncture and health education are also being built.

The health ministry has recruited 1,500 Venezuelan physicians to join the new programs. It has arranged for 17,000 Venezuelans to travel to Cuba for orthopedic or eye surgery.

Under Barrio Adentro III, the existing hospital system will be overhauled. The government will b

EYETOOTH

Sunday, October 16, 2005 4:53 AM

Quote:
Here is another well written, clear and inspirational account of the positive efforts for humanity being made by the government of Venezuela under the leadership of President Hugo Chavez.

Mods, please...you presumably wouldn't long tolerate a poster trying to sell everyone on Jesus, and this guy is scarcely better than that.

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, October 16, 2005 6:46 AM

Let me guess, Howard. You really, really, really like Hugo Chavez?

I have a few thoughts on this whole national health care business.

1. Nationalized health care proposals always rest on one assumption: that western, allopathic medicine is a good thing. What if it isn't? What a waste of money then, eh?

Now western medicine indisputably can be very useful. If you get your arm bit off by a shark, surgeons can reattach it. EMTs can resuscitate dying or dead folks, and docs can remove nasty projectiles out of people's skulls. All in all, I'd say emergency/trauma is the field's strong suit.

The usefulness of the rest of medicine is disputable. Mostly, they either sell drugs for people to be dependent on for the rest of their lives, or charge exorbitant sums to cut you open and rearrange your insides. Whether either of these are necessary, or better than their alternatives, is subject to debate.

Is it fair to force everyone to pay for this product (allopathic medicine)? If you love this product, sure it's great. If you prefer an alternative product, then well, it sucks that you have to pay for something you don't believe in.

There are various philosophies and models of healing. To have the government subsidize one over another is just as egregious as having the government subsidize one religion over another. Wouldn't it be better to just let people choose what kind of health care they want?

In Venezuela, as in the rest of South America, they have centuries old, indigenous traditions for healing and health. Who is to say that the govt should subsidize western medicine over those methods?

People who support nationalized health care tend to be liberals who are usually sensitive to multicultural and minority issues and supportive of diversity. Yet when it comes to health care, multicultural philosophies and diversity disappear--in favor of the dominant western (and if I may add, male-centric) paradigm.

2. Speaking of liberals, leftists who support nationalize health care usually have a deep distrust of industry and corporations. They see them as greedy and corrupt and unconcerned for consumers. However, when it comes to the medical industry and pharmaceutical/hospital corporations, that distrust disappears as well.

Let me illustrate. Imagine if gas prices continued to soar. They reach $20/gallon. Only the very wealthy can afford gasoline. Would liberals support a National Gasoline Share system? Force everyone to take a chunk out of his/her paycheck so the industry can keep expanding its profit margin? Or would they challenge the prices, question a CEO's exorbitant salary, and maybe even boycott the industry until they bring prices down? Would they use high gas prices as a springboard for demanding research into alternative fuels? After all, if gas prices are truly that costly, then maybe we should come up with less costly alternatives.

Why do folks want a national health care plan? Because health care is too expensive for average citizens. Now instead of paying the extortionist prices, how about figuring out how to bring those prices down? Examine policies affecting the cost of malpractice insurance and clinical trials for new drugs, for example. Hell, if oil company CEO's should live on a little less, maybe doctors should too? How about figuring out how we can come up with alternative health care that simply costs less? Come up with cures instead of treatments you have to take for the rest of your life.

Somehow, when it comes to doctors and pharmaceuticals, the same standards for challenging greed and corruption don't apply. We need a national plan to help them make their boat and vacation home payments so that they don't let us die.

3. Can all that money be used in better ways for promoting health? In Venezuela, could they be reinforcing the infrastructure for street cleaning, sewer, clean water, pest control, transportation and communication (the last 2 affects costs of products that maintain health, such as fresh food). Would better sanitation k

CITIZEN

Sunday, October 16, 2005 1:01 PM

Just as a little aside from your post CantTakeSky:
I believe the British NHS actually subsidies some alternative medicine (i.e. thoughs that have shown to have a beneficial effect).
I'm a supporter of national health. Personally I believe that Health care (western or otherwise) is a right, not a privalage of those that can afford the bills/medical insurance.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, October 16, 2005 3:30 PM

Citizen,

You know, health care wouldn't be a privilege of the wealthy if the industry didn't charge exorbitant prices for their products and services.

Everybody needs working cars. Mechanics can be expensive, but most people don't need car care insurance to keep their cars working. Why not? Because mechanics don't charge an arm and a leg so they can live like kings off of other people's misery and desperation.

Wouldn't a better solution be to bring down health care costs so they're affordable, instead of forcing everyone to fork out for some doctor's 3rd vacation home?

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

CITIZEN

Sunday, October 16, 2005 3:45 PM

I don't think so...
Mainly because in Britian we've tried privatising public sector services and they end up costing more, giving a poorer service, and in some cases actually being far more dangerous (I speak largely of the privatisation of the Train networks).

Further more there's people in society who can't afford mechanics, or even a car. The only way to allow those people to be able to get Health care is to make it free for them, which means either state run where the wealthy (them that can afford to pay more) pay more, or pricing system that accomplish the same thing in the private sector. Which frankly, I doubt would happen.
Why? Because of the nature of buissness. Richer folks will understandably go to the cheapest, and you'll end up getting a system that caters to them, but not less fortunate people (allowing them to keep prices down for richer folks).
I don't think it's unfair to ask people to look after those less fortunate than themselves, and that's essentially how I see public health care.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't

SIGNYM

Sunday, October 16, 2005 3:56 PM

Can'ttake sky- There are a lot of reasons for the high cost of health care, but in fact the health care in the good old USA is at least 50% higher per capita than ANY OTHER industrialized nation- and about 30% of our population is uninsured. I want to make sure that you understand that statistic:

Our health care costs per capita are HIGHER than per capita health care costs of any other undustrialized nation, DESPITE the fact that a large portion of our population has no health care coverage and very little health care service.

The difference between "them" and us is that they all have nationlized health care and we don't. Here's something else to consider- you may have cause and effect bass ackwards. One of the reasons why we have such high health care costs is BECAUSE we have for-profit insurance companies, who not only make a heatlhy 8-15% profit but also suck up approximately 30% in administrative costs. "The industry" does charge exhorbitan prices- but "the industry" is not uniformly making tons of profit. Within the industry, the profit takers are the pharmas and the insurances.

BTW- as far as allopathic medicine is concerned- since my daughter and SO have serious chronic illnesses, I can guarantee you that there are some conditions that don't respond to holy smoke and chanting. I have nothing against traditional medicine, but a lot of it is ineffective. (Too bad we don't have the equivalent of the German Commission E.)

Please do some research on the topic.

Please don't think they give a shit.

SIGNYM

Sunday, October 16, 2005 4:15 PM

Quote:
Mods, please...you presumably wouldn't long tolerate a poster trying to sell everyone on Jesus, and this guy is scarcely better than that.

You must be new here. There are people here who post LOOOONG posts about how WMD will eventually be found in Iraq. People are pretty much allowed to post anything.

Furthermore, to compare a news article to preaching is like comparing a Disney cartoon about mermaids to a Science article on cetaceans. I know that you don't like the content of the articles, but unlike religion, news is not a matter of faith. It can be argued with evidence and reason. As I said in my other post, try bringing some of both to the table.

Please don't think they give a shit.

HOWARD

Sunday, October 16, 2005 4:48 PM

Hi there CANTTAKESKY!

First of all thank you very much for your intelligent and civil and very well written response.

On Hugo Chavez, he is merely the face of a movement to liberate people from American imperialism. I believe he is true of heart but also that he a politician and thus as with all
state figures is liable to flaws and perfectly capable of being wrong sometimes but so far more good, a lot more good than bad. It is also very significant that he is the first Latin American leader who has a face and ethnicity that does not look like a White Spanish guy from Madrid.He is the first leader in the hemisphere and the first in his country to look like the majority. American imperialism has held most of Latin American in a cross between a capitalist version of the Soviet's East Bloc and South Africa under Apartheid. People are fighting back see the DVD of the documentary THE CORPORATION and its supplementary second disc for the story among other issues of what happened in Bolivia between the Bolivian people and Betchel in the struggle over their water supply.

On health care first we need to separate the health care dicussion in terms of 1st and 3rd World. In the poor communities of the South people have been traditonally denied what they have not only needed but have asked for. In Honduras for example under a regime that is a client of the USA the indigenous people officially receive no real health. But working in the rural villages and native people are doctors trained and educated at the Latin America school of Medicine in Cuba and sent to Honduras to provide poor people with health care by Castro's program to promote health care for the people. There are thousands of doctors educated for free of charge from many countries now working with hundreds of thousands of poor people across the region courtesy of the Cuban Revolution.

Now whether or not the lack of any parallel humanitarian effort by the great wealth of the United States is out of inhumanity or stupidity while the demonised enemy Castro does it with so little financial resources; the facts remains the same. Castro is no perfect angel and in constrast Hugo Chavez hss been twice elected but in examination of the record of the likes of Bush and Clinton I am not so inclined to second guess Castro on such good works. There is a reason why the Cuban Revolution (with all its flaws and shortcomings) is so popular with millions of people across the Third World. In countries where American power and its clients has done nothing but hurt people the poor of developing nations are not so convinced by the 1st World sales pitch.
For 50 years American media has promoted the insane notion of US generosity making the average American think that the US gives 20% of such figure of its GNP to the poor nations of the world. In surveys people have been asked about this and they give answers like "Well we give about 20% to the world I would be happy with 10% of our GNP" In fact over the past 50 years under Rep and Dem admins the USA has given/spent about 0:4% of 1% of GNP to the Third World.

Hugo Chavez is first President of an OPEC nation to use oil wealth to benefit the poor. The late Michael Manley PM of Jamaica tried to convince the Saudis to use their money for nothing to help poor countries get out of their debt bind with the IMF and the USA. The Saudi adhered to their agreement with the Americans and the British. That agreement has always been...something like this...You can keep your regime you can chop peoples head off and torture people and oppress your women as long as you direct the capital from oil as inward investment into North America and Europe...As long as the money goes North not South the House of Saud stays in power. So Manley was told by the Saudis that there were not interested in helping debt strangled countries like Jamaica.

Hugo Chavez is the crucial break in the OPEC mould and in the European Conquistador rule of 500 years of rich Spaniards and their gringo masters oppressing the peoples of Latin America.

Chavez is just the face

CITIZEN

Sunday, October 16, 2005 6:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Howard:
PS CANTTAKESKY as you can see from the other above response the low level of thought and mentality in equating Chavez with North Korea. This is why I appreciate your intelligent response and critique of my offering as such as contrast to the other's utter ignorance.

Howard, please refrain from personal attacks against other posters, they will NOT be tolerated here.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't

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