Submitted by CARPE DIEM

LA TIMES–Palacios, Venezuela’s largest public maternity hospital and once the nation’s beacon of neonatal care, has fallen on hard times. Half of the anesthesiologists and pediatricians on staff two years ago have quit. Basic equipment such as respirators, ultrasound monitors and incubators are either broken or scarce. Six of 12 birth rooms have been shut, and on one day last month, five newborns were crowded into one incubator.

There were six infant deaths at Palacios over a 24-hour period late last month, and since the beginning of February, six mothers have died in the hospital during or after childbirth.
Cases of malaria nearly doubled in Venezuela between 1998, the year before Chavez took office, and 2007. Incidents of dengue fever more than doubled over the same period. After the medical establishment blamed him for an outbreak of dengue fever last summer, Chavez halted weekly publication of an epidemiology report that for 50 years had tallied occurrences of infectious diseases nationwide.

As the Liberty Papers blog reports, this is a “healthcare system only Michael Moore could love.”

(Via Taxing Tennessee)

Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.