The journalist Ángel Cedeño , a native of Venezuela, was a correspondent in the Latin American country for Telecinco, among other Spanish media. Last Thursday he began to feel ill. After fainting in full live broadcast, he began his journey through the Venezuelan public health. He ended up dying without knowing what was wrong with him because no one wanted to attend to him. He was 38 years old, married with three dependent daughters, and has died without knowing why. A terrible episode as a result of the disastrous health care available to Venezuelans thanks to the regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Cedeño was a Venezuelan correspondent for Telecinco and collaborated with the Nius newspaper. With a critical view of the Nicolás Maduro regime, the journalist defined himself as follows: “I respond to the editorial line that my principles dictate.” Last week, after fainting, he began visiting doctors to find out what was wrong. He first visited a hospital in Caracas where they told him that they could not treat him. He went to another center in the Venezuelan capital and received the same response: “We cannot serve you.” It was in a third where they finally treated him but it was not very helpful: they told him that they did not know what he had and prescribed an antibiotic, amoxicillin , and rest. Antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections. Prescribing something like this without a prior diagnosis is a manual medical negligence. But it is one of the few accessible drugs in Venezuela, so it becomes the few solutions available to doctors.
Venezuela is experiencing an unprecedented health crisis . The already precarious situation of the country after years of dictatorial policies added to the coronavirus pandemic that has affected the entire world, have turned the Venezuelan Health into a barren place with very little expectations of helping citizens. While private healthcare, in a somewhat better situation than public healthcare, is accessible to a privileged few, the majority of the population has to deal with healthcare poverty . The official figures of deaths from coronavirus are much, much lower than in Spain: 4,454 deaths since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. An official source in Venezuela, it is said, is anything but reliable.
Ángel Cedeño finally died this Monday without knowing the causes of his death. His associates do not give credit: “Venezuela killed him,” some of them say. Cedeño himself could not believe the situation he had to face: «I couldn’t breathe, I thought I was going to die. And so I had to go to other hospitals until I reached the University Clinic where they treated me for the kicks and in subhuman conditions. There, Covid and non-Covid patients remain in the same place (…) Venezuela is facing a collapsed health system . It is one thing for us to say it in a report and another for us to experience it firsthand, ”Ángel wrote to a friend the same day he fainted. A few days later, the journalist died due to the inaction of a totally sick health system.
