Collapsing Venezuela’s chronic shortages have led to creation of “medical flea markets”
by: JD Heyes
NaturalNews.com
Saturday, December 09, 2017
Life in Venezuela under the “socialist revolution” of President Nicolas Maduro continues to devolve into a hellish existence, and that is especially true when it comes to basic human needs like nourishment and medical care.
To the latter, things are so bad in the South American nation that at any given time, its pharmaceutical association estimates that there are shortages of around 85 percent of commonly used medications.
That has led to the creation of so-called “medical flea markets” in which peddlers offer everything from antibiotics — which now cost an average of $10, or twice the minimum wage — to contraceptives, the UK’s Daily Mail reported. But even at ten bucks, that’s still below what other retail outlets are charging, hence the growing popularity of the markets.
As Maduro lives large at his people’s expense, refusing to admit that his ‘Bolivarian revolution’ (which was actually begun under his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez), his people are suffering mightily. Strict currency controls have destroyed national production and the ability to import necessary goods like food and, of course, medicines.
As such, Venezuelans who get sick have to go from pharmacy to pharmacy in order to find the right medicines, often making appeals on social media for assistance.
And while we’re no fans of Big Pharma here at Natural News, chronic shortages of all foods make it nearly impossible for Venezuelans to find and eat clean, healthy, GMO- and toxin-free foods so they need fewer medications in the first place. Truly, it’s a lose/lose situation for the people.
So they have to do whatever they can to survive, and that’s a large part of how and why medical flea markets sprang up; as established pharmacies continue to run short of medications, a free-market alternative to the crippling socialism model has emerged.
Some medicines sold in the flea markets come from a burgeoning black market that buys them from local hospitals or obtains them from across the border in Colombia.
“Here I can find the vitamins I need for my memory,” said Marisol Salas, 56, who has suffered a stroke, while purchasing the pills at a small flea market near the main bus terminal in the Andean city of San Cristobal.
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