Blackouts take away hours of life from Venezuelan dialysis patients in Mérida
Patients receiving hemodialysis treatment in Mérida are subjected to constant anxiety because continuous power outages affect the inter-daily sessions they must receive.
Jesús Quintero / Correspondent lapatilla.com
Ramón Antonio Zerpa is a patient at this unit and with great concern he stated: “Every time a whistle sounds it is an alarm signal from the machines, announcing that they have run out of electricity to continue with the routine procedure.”
Patients wait in their seats while the specialized nursing staff disconnects them from the devices.
Their life hangs by a thread, while the fuel for the power plants and that they obtain through state organizations, from individual donations or its purchase by patients’ relatives to turn on the power plant, is insufficient and represents a high expenditure, added to the supplies that must be bought for each session, such as IV needles, syringes and other disposable materials used during the procedure.
Government aid is not constant, relatives hold raffles, sell goods and manage to pay the high costs of treatments.
Public healthcare must be a priority for the State, which must guarantee the optimal functioning of all services so that they are used appropriately and provide the necessary help to those patients who do not have the economic capacity to go to private healthcare centers.
