Pregnant Women Are Giving Birth In Streets In Venezuela As There Are No Health Facilities Available Not Even Painkillers (Video)

A pregnant woman in Venezuela was sent from one hospital to another before finally giving birth to her daughter in the corridor of a maternity ward. There is a common practice of referring pregnant women from hospital to hospitaldue to lack of personnel, supplies or or sanitary conditions. A woman was filmed giving birth to her son squatting by a tree in front of the biggest hospital in Bolivar. Venezuela is in the midst of an economic meltdown triggered by mismanagement and a slump in oil prices followed by US sanctions. The United Nations says some 2.3 million people have fled Venezuela since 2015 and amongst them have been many doctors. According to a study by a dozen non-profits, some 22,000 doctors, more than half the former total, emigrated between 2012 and 2017. Added to that, more than 6,000 nurses (74 percent of that industry´s workforce) and 6,600 lab technicians have left while there´s a shortage of 90 percent of necessary medicines and supplies. Often, patients are turned away "because there are no surgical materials, no anesthesiologists. They don´t even have chlorine to clean the cubicles," said Silvia Bolivar, a nurse at Concepcion Palacios, the biggest maternity unit in the capital Caracas. Pregnant women are sometimes expected to bring their own disinfectant and garbage bags. Venezuela has been suffering from four years of recession in which poverty is on the rise as food has become short in supply. A caesarean section kit costs the equivalent of $100 at the black market rate while the minimum wage is 1,800 bolivars ($6) a month. Inflation, which the International Monetary Fund predicts will reach 1.35 million percent this year has crippled the currency as United States sanctions saw foreign investment dry up.