Pandemic in Caracas, what the Maduro government does not want us to see 4:35
Caracas (CNN) -
A young woman sitting next to a hospital bed gently strokes the hair of a withered figure.
At first glance, it looks like it could be a boy, but gray hair finally gives away a man.
Lying face down is his 69-year-old father.
Her thin, frail, trembling body almost disappears under a thick set of blankets.
"He's very cold," she says, continuing to stroke his hair, hardly turning to face us.
"They gave him a treatment and he said it was very cold," he added, referring to the intravenous drip that had just been administered.
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A woman photographed at the Vargas Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, with her 69-year-old father.
She told CNN that her father suffers from malnutrition and shares a room with a Covid-19 patient despite his compromised immune system.
His father suffers from malnutrition, a situation that has become common among Venezuelans.
He needs iron supplements, but Hospital Vargas de Caracas, where he is being treated, simply does not have them.
Your daughter will have to take the medicine herself or the doctors say her hemoglobulin levels will remain low.
His immune system is compromised, yet medical staff tell us that he shares this room with patients with diseases so contagious that, in most countries, they would be isolated from the rest.
Among them, medical personnel tell us, is a patient with covid-19.
It is the dangerous overlap of disease that the impoverished Venezuelan state has imposed on its citizens, with a global health emergency that has largely paralyzed the world.
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Years of mismanagement by the government have left Venezuelan healthcare without sufficient preparation and resources to handle the covid-19 pandemic.
Over the past decade, the country has squandered most of its oil wealth, plunging into a deep economic and humanitarian crisis.
Venezuela has the largest proven reserves of crude oil on the planet, but a sharp drop in oil prices in 2016 triggered an economic implosion that led to hyperinflation and shortages of basic products such as food and medicine.
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Most of the country's hospitals and clinics have seen drastic cuts in government funding and are on the brink of collapse, surviving thanks to the sheer will of the healthcare workers they continue to serve.
"There is nothing in this hospital, not even uniforms," tells us a senior medical worker who, like many others in this story, spoke on the condition that she remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the government.
"It is our calling and we want to do a good job, but with our low salaries ... we have to make our way."
Nurses like her typically earn about $ 3 a month in Venezuela, unions have told us.
Support staff and doctors here earn about $ 1 and $ 5, respectively, they also told us.
The Vargas Hospital lacks basic supplies, such as iron supplements, and staff say they have to fight for every piece of equipment, most of which end up buying it themselves.
The smell of disinfectant is conspicuously absent - nothing remains - and at the end of the room, in a unit that is apparently no longer in use, two dead rats lie on the floor.
They've been there for days, he says.
The abandoned state of hospitals that were once recognized in Venezuela is no secret, and as the coronavirus spreads across the country, many patients choose to face the pandemic at home, fearing that their chances of surviving the virus will be much worse on the premises, health workers tell us.
The government's strategy
According to official government accounts, Venezuela appears to have escaped the devastating impact that the virus has had on other countries in the region.
With 104,442 confirmed cases and 919 deaths from covid-19, according to the official government tally, Venezuela appears to be one of the least affected countries in all of Latin America, a fraction of its neighbors Brazil, Colombia and Peru.
The embattled President Nicolás Maduro has largely declared victory against the virus, saying, during a speech Thursday, that doctors, nurses and other staff were able to respond to COVID-19 "under the unified institutions of the state."
The authoritarian regime has responded to the virus with force, issuing strict precautionary measures and seizing hotels and motels to quarantine suspected covid-19 patients for weeks.
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Suspected patients can remain under this state-administered quarantine for up to 21 days, authorities say.
Some patients, however, have told CNN that the time may be longer, sharing heartbreaking stories about the abandonment and isolation they experienced inside.
At the Los Magallanes hospital, which cares for some of the poorest in the capital, Caracas, most of the wards are now empty, with the doors chained and without electricity or water.
Dr. Richard Rodríguez, who works in one of these government-run facilities, tells CNN: “We know that maybe (the motels) are not the best conditions, these are not five-star hotels, but at least they have a doctor, a nurse, emergency personnel who are available to attend them when necessary.
Under the watchful eye of a government bodyguard, Rodríguez adds that "Venezuelans have strong immunity against the virus."
He swears he never saw a shortage of medical supplies or protective equipment.
"We had all the supplies and equipment we needed," he concludes.
But that's a far cry from what many healthcare workers at Vargas and other hospitals tell CNN.
Most of the medical personnel we spoke with do not agree with the government's guarantees about the ability of their health system to handle the pandemic, and they have doubts about the official statistics on the cost of the pandemic in Venezuela.
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Experts say the number of deaths and cases may be greatly underestimated due to insufficient testing and an over-reliance on rapid antibody tests, which are considered less reliable than the WHO-recommended PCR tests.
CNN approached the Venezuelan government to comment on the conditions observed in these hospitals in Caracas and also on criticism from health professionals, but received no response.
Intrepid doctors
Venezuelan doctors, academics and journalists have been singled out for criticizing the government for its response to the pandemic, with many facing criminal charges for allegedly spreading false information.
A Caracas doctor, Dr. Gustavo Villasmil, tells CNN that he felt pressure to stop talking about the government's response to the pandemic, but that won't stop him from speaking.
We met him at the Caracas University Hospital, just outside his office, near the parking lot, where he quickly directed us to another area, across the street, away from the facilities and closer to the university campus.
"They warned me that the 'colectivos' would be hanging around today," he says, referring to pro-government paramilitary groups that have played an increasingly important role in keeping Maduro in power.
A Los Magallanes hospital worker said the facility has no supplies and that patients who do not die from their disease die from contamination.
Villasmil says appalling medical care conditions are common in Venezuela.
"Last year, no Venezuelan hospital had running water 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he tells us, citing a survey of health centers in Venezuela.
"It can be deduced how a surgical area or an emergency area or an intensive care area where this service is required is managed."
With testing limited to just three government-controlled labs, he adds that it is impossible to assess that Venezuela has successfully dealt with the virus.
"With regard to covid, we don't know where we are," he says.
"In Venezuela there are only as many recognized covid cases as the regime has wanted."
His views are shared by several doctors, nurses, and medical staff interviewed by CNN in Caracas, including Dr. Julio Castro, an infectious disease expert and professor at the Institute of Tropical Medicine at the Central University of Venezuela, who leads the commission on the National Assembly's coronavirus and advises government officials.
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Castro says that what is happening inside hospital wards across the country does not support the government's reported coronavirus case numbers.
"You see the official numbers, they are going down very, very quickly," he says, while in hospitals, doctors report seeing the exact opposite.
"In the last three weeks, we have seen an increase in the number of cases in the emergency room."
The lack of evidence and the delay in results complicate matters, he adds.
"Right now we have a patient in the ICU who has been admitted for seven days and we had no PCR confirmation until yesterday," says Castro.
"The average (waiting for the results of the PCR test) in Caracas at the moment is close to a week or 10 days."
Los Magallanes Hospital.
Staff at Vargas' hospital told CNN they had to fight tooth and nail for every piece of equipment, most of which end up having to buy themselves.
"I've had this mask for about five days," a nurse told us, while adjusting the elastic on one side.
"They don't give us the means to stay safe, they don't give us gloves, they don't give us face masks," she said, showing us the bottle of hand sanitizer she carried with her that she had to buy herself.
And they have paid a very high price.
More than 270 health workers in Venezuela have died from COVID-19, according to Médicos Unidos de Venezuela, an NGO that supports doctors and other health workers, accounting for almost a third of the deaths reported by the government. Venezuelan.
The percentage is much higher than in other countries in the region and around the world, another reason why many Venezuelans question the government's figures.
At another hospital, Los Magallanes, which cares for some of the poorest people in the capital Caracas, even the dead are neglected.
Most of the rooms are now empty, their doors chained and electricity and water cut off.
In the morgue, there is only a noisy freezer and the electricity comes and goes.
The stench is unbearable.
The smell of decomposing bodies penetrates our masks.
The staff here tell us that there is no pathologist at the hospital and the space appears abandoned, with stains of dried blood covering the walls and used supplies strewn across two autopsy tables.
Many of those who end up here die undiagnosed.
The medical worker who shows us the bleak rooms says that he has been working here for more than a decade and has never seen the conditions in the hospital get so bad.
"The constitution clearly says that the government is the guarantor of health, security, and nutrition for all Venezuelans," he tells us.
"They keep saying that everything is fine, but it's a lie."
Caracas Pandemic