Thousands upon thousands of Venezuelans pour into Colombia over the crowd cross-country bridge, their faces gaunt, carrying little more than a backpack. Rail-thin women cradle their tiny babies, and beg along the trash-strewn gutters. Teens hawk everything from cigarettes to sweets and water for small change. The young, the old and the disabled cluster around the lone Western Union office β recently established to deal with the Venezuelan influx β in the hopes of receiving or sending a few dollars to send home.
Without passports or work permits, the Venezuelans β many with university degrees or decent jobs in what was once the wealthiest nation in Latin America β are now resorting to whatever it takes to survive. Other women sell their bodies. Both men and women are exposed to sex trafficking along the route from Venezuela to Colombia.
That's particularly the case in border areas, where many rebel and drug-trafficking groups operate. They come from a country they say now resembles a war zone. But now they're in Colombia, where conditions are far from perfect, but are at least safer, and more stable. Thousands flood from Venezuela into Colombia on a daily basis. Inside Venezuela, health care has all but dissolved. Children are dying of malaria and hepatitis.
Suicide rates too have skyrocketed, even among children. There are next to no mental health services. As there is no treatment available in his homeland, his focus has been on buying whatever medications he can find on the black market β from chemotherapy pills to IV drips β to send back via the Colombian border.
The central administration would send me to a branch and tell me I could find chemo pills, but then they said they had none. A recent National Hospital Survey conducted by the Physicians for Health organization found that not only are more than 95 percent of CAT and MRI machines inoperative but 43 percent of laboratories are out of order, 33 percent of beds are broken, and 51 percent of hospitals are gravely short of emergency supplies.
