At least 233 people died between 2019 and 2021 in hospitals in Venezuela due to power outages that are constantly recorded in the country, a study revealed on Wednesday.
Deaths due to power outages in hospitals
“For the year 2019, the total number of deaths attributable to power outages in Venezuela was 17 people. For 2020, it was 75 and for the end of 2021 it was 141. This was revealed by the National Hospital Survey (EHN) that has the endorsement of the National Academy of Medicine and opposition sectors.
Physicians from the main hospitals in the country participate in the survey. It was created in 2014 to denounce the deficiencies in the public health system, drowned in shortages of medicines and supplies, water and electricity cuts, and a precarious infrastructure.
doctors for health
Those responsible for the survey, grouped in the NGO Doctors for Healthbegan measuring deaths that could be attributed to power outages following the 2019 mega blackout, which lasted four days.
The report explains: “Patients who died because they needed mechanical ventilation or had to enter the emergency operating room; and they could not transfer them inside the hospital because there was no elevator to do it».
It also details that the increase in deaths in 2021 could be related to the covid-19 pandemic.
“Since this is a disease with respiratory involvement, the patients who presented more serious conditions needed constant mechanical ventilation for many days. Power fluctuation obviously has consequences in these cases,” he notes.
Venezuela has been experiencing constant power outages for more than a decade, which the government of Nicolás Maduro attributes to sabotage and “terrorist acts,” as well as international sanctions.
However, experts agree that both the electricity crisis and the hospital crisis respond to years of disinvestment.