This is my first opinion article on specific but negative aspects of life in Venezuela. Let me start by saying they have great food, friendly people, an awesome climate, and more. However, this has been overshadowed by the rule of Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela since 1999. This plunged the country into a terrible ruin which I have escaped. Sadly, not many notice what happens, and as I have found a place where I can exercise my freedom of speech fully, I feel it is time to relate the negative aspects of what life was like there from 2000 to 2009. Perhaps this way Venezuela will matter more. Note, I am not Venezuelan, but Colombian.

Health deteriorated there every year. Malaria outbreaks in the last year. I have a bad health condition, which constantly sent me to the hospital. It was many times horrible. Asking five times for water, and having to buy it yourself because no one brought it. Fearing to get medicines at night because the hospitals didn’t have them and going out at night was very dangerous. Staying 48 hours on a chair in the ER with potassium coursing through your veins because no cots were free to use. Hell, I entered the ER a few years ago because I had fractured my foot, and as they applied the cast, a teen was rushed in on a bed, with blood pouring out, and the nurses shouting about a gunshot. It would be later when my mom told me he had died right there. Is it fun to wake up at the sounds of gunshots? What about my mom, looking down through a window and seeing a nurse get attacked, all her possessions stolen? Mind you, this was the BEST hospital in Venezuela.

But apart from my personal stories, other horrible ones still remain. Women who were about to give birth, and since there were no rooms they’d give birth in a waiting room. Is that natural? No, it is not. There are other stories which I cannot currently recall, but this was the health situation in Venezuela.