An otherwise under-the-radar story, brought to light by the Wall Street Journal, is now drawing attention to other parts of the globe. While many lose their lives in Syria due to bombings and terrorist activity, many newborns in Venezuela are losing their lives due to a lack of medical supplies.
Venezuela, once viewed as a “model for health care in Latin America,” is now experiencing an increasing rate of infant deaths. The healthy infants, only in need of clean hands, contract infection preventable only by unavailable supplies.
The Venezuelan government is doing its hardest to limit the rumors from spreading about the high mortality rates and lack of supply. They are accused of threatening those in the medical field with losing their job if they divulge statistics of newborn mortality. Does this fall under our responsibility to protect another country? If their own government can’t provide for its people, then what should be done?
Read full WSJ article here.
Photo Credit: https://blog.genoppinstitute.org/articles/2016/08/08/in-venezuela-newborn-mortality-rates-skyrocket-as-rolling-blackouts-and-supply-shortages-continue/
This is such an interesting issue to explore. The first aspect that is interesting is that this story has seemed to be covered up by the news. I find it to be so interesting that stories that the news chooses to cover and the ones that it does not. It would be interesting to go in and see what the root of this problem is. Why is it that the mortality rate is increasing? Is it a corruption problem? A lack of resources? With every single problem there is always a root causes that need to be looked at.
I think it’s really unfortunate that these kinds of things are not talked about in the news. Terrorism is such a hot topic and the media has sensationalized it by a very large measure. I wonder what kind of measures are being taken to address this issue. It seems that Venezuela lacks the infrastructure to handle this issue on there own. Should the United Nations get involved?
This is a clear example of covered corruption.
I have worked for the government and trust me, people’s taxes give more than enough to invest in healthcare and construction projects. Furthermore, the price of medicine has almost zero taxes so countries may purchase them.
The problem relies in the people in the government. So filthy corrupted, people who will take the millions of bolivars and leave the country with almost nothing.
People knows abut this. It is their right to fight for a democracy and take those people out from the government.
It is terribly sad that babies died because of people’s avarice.
To answer the question addressed ask in the blog post… “Does this fall under our responsibility to protect another country?” First, I don’t think that is the correct question to be asking, because Venezuela isn’t being attacked, moreover Venezuela needs assistance in its medical needs. So in this case Yes, it absolutely is our responsibility to aid their medical. Do we think just doing nothing and keep letting babies die is a good response? No, that’s a disgusting response. However, if providing aid to a government causes our own people to be put in harm’s way, we might want to reconsider. If Venezuela is up in arms about denying its high infant mortality rate, and thus providing aid would cause violence then we should take another angle or stratagem, but sitting and to doing nothing in these situations is not a valid response. If Venezuela does take this prideful approach, and continues to deny and cover up this inhumanity then absolutely the UN needs to get involved, if they aren’t already. They should do all they can to prevent these types of behaviors from happening.
Hopefully, by drawing international attention to these issues the Venezuelan government will feel pressured to take action into their own hands. That is more effective than having another country attempting to give and administer aid.
The media is so busy with the middle-east conflict that it forgets about other parts of the world. Ofcourse, it is our responsibility to help Valenzuela with its medical needs and with providing to its people. If Valenzuela was once “model for health care in Latin America” then it can be again. The UN should be involved in this issue and resolve it. Although, I do not like that the Venezuelan government is covering up on the story instead of asking for help.
This is what corruption does. Venezuela has had issues with this for decades, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. It’s unfortunate that it has not been more publicized, and that focus has recently been placed on terrorism, but international agencies cannot be blamed for not helping if this has only just come to light. I’m sure now that it has, something will be done.
Is it our responsibility? No. Empirically, foreign aid is unreliable, and in some cases, devastating to the receiving country when executed in a careless way. Why is it that we are unable to get life saving mosquito nets to people in Africa when they cost less then 15 cents a piece? There is no accountability and little incentive other than morality.
Venezuela is an interesting economic case, and their shortage problems are not just limited to their health care supplies, it spills over to food and other needed resources. A core problem rests in failed governmental intervention in the market, which limits prices, thereby driving down the quantity available.
The solution is not for America to ride in and save the day, that would only prolong the real problems in the country.
It is impossible to draw a line between what is our responsibility and what isn’t. There are simply too many problems in the world. We face many in our own country alone. The sad thing is, like the mortality rates of Venezuelan babies, most of the problems are covered up or simply unknown to the world. I believe that this is actually helpful to the overall wellness of the world because if every single problem was evident than each country would stick to their own issues. There would simply be too many to solve.