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26$ = 1 DELIVERY KIT = TWO LIVES SAVED!
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Visit the Cookie Policy pageTHE CORD follows Carolina, a community health worker in Maracaibo, Venezuela, where a collapsed healthcare system leaves families to source their own medical supplies. One basic delivery kit costs about $26, roughly seven months of the minimum wage. After Maduro's removal, help from the US has been announced: 25 pallets of medical supplies by February, more than $386 million for earthquake relief by July. So why are the families Carolina works with still struggling to buy their own supplies?
One delivery kit inlcudes:
Laparotomy kit, patient and surgeon gowns, shoe covers, surgical caps for women and men, face masks, sterile gloves, and a macro drip IV set, along with an IV catheter (Yelco) size 18. It also lists syringes in 3, 5, 10 and 20 cc sizes, a Foley catheter size 16, a urine collection bag, 0.9% saline solution, a suction catheter, 18x18 abdominal gauze pads, sterile gauze, sterile soap, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, size 23 scalpel blades, a cautery pencil, adhesive tape, a size 27 spinal needle, an umbilical cord clamp, and an ampule of vitamin K. For closing, it calls for Vicryl suture size 1, chromic suture in sizes 1 and 0, silk suture size 1, and nylon suture size 2/0, plus electrodes, an ID wristband, and white sheets. The medication section covers atropine, ephedrine, neostigmine, bupivacaine 0.5%, lidocaine 2%, midazolam, propofol, Ringer's solution, an antibiotic, an analgesic, a blood transfusion set, 5% glucose solution, oxytocin, and 500 mg of hydrocortisone
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Carolina and her community dream of building Maracaibo's first community-led birthing center that weaves together ancestral and traditional medicine with the safety of modern accompaniment.
This dream is born from a healthcare system in profound collapse, one meticulously documented by Venezuela's own National Hospital Survey (ENH). For over five years, a network of resident doctors has monitored the country's 40 largest hospitals. Their 2024 Mid Year Report reveals a stark reality.
In the first half of 2024, the average shortage of basic emergency supplies across these hospitals was 36%, a figure that has not improved in years. In the operating rooms, where many births become surgeries, the shortage soars to 74%.
The ENH found that in 91% of monitored hospitals, patients, mothers included, are asked to provide their own supplies just to be admitted to the operating room, regardless of whether the surgery is an emergency. For a woman needing a C-section, her family must first find and pay for items like sutures, painkillers, and even sterile gowns. By July 2024, the cost of this basic surgical kit averaged $103 USD. To put this in perspective, Venezuela's minimum wage at the time was approximately $3.5 per month, meaning a family would need nearly 29 months of minimum wage income to afford the supplies for a single, life-saving surgery.
The consequences are measured in time and lives. The "door-to-needle time": a critical window for saving a life, is stretched far beyond safe limits. A patient having a heart attack waits an average of 74 minutes for the first medication, far exceeding the international standard of 30-45 minutes. One can only imagine the delays a woman suffering a postpartum hemorrhage or an obstetric emergency faces in this same system.
Behind these numbers is a deeper loss. The ENH notes that the shortage is not a temporary blip but a "failure at the level of authorities and decision-makers".
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