Venezuela’s Humanitarian Crisis: Portraits of Venezuelans affected by the medical and food shortage

Carol Jimenez, 9, has diabetes. Her mother struggles to obtain insulin, reactive strips to measure her blood sugar, and enough food to provide her with adequate nutrition.

Graciela Giron, 30, has breast cancer. Since January 2016, she has been unable to obtain medication through the public healthcare system or private pharmacies and has resorted to organizing events with other breast-cancer patients to raise money to purchase medicines abroad, where they cost ten times more.

Jesus Espinoza, 16, has had three kidney transplants and has been receiving hemodialysis since 2013. The hospital has run out of medications he needs, including to control his blood pressure, and his mother has resorted to trading medications with other mothers at the hospital.

Lizbeth Hurtado, 30, has Chron’s disease, a chronic gastrointestinal illness. For more than a year, she has found it difficult to obtain medications and has had to interrupt treatment, causing a worsening of such symptoms as weight loss and hair loss, intestinal problems, and skin eruptions.

María Cañizalis, 4, has asthma and suffers from frequent fevers and convulsions. She was initially treated at a public hospital but relapsed after discharge, when her family was unable to afford the antibiotic she needed.

Dr. Juan Gonzalo Torres Polanco was removed from his position as surgeon at the Pedro E. Carrillo Central Hospital in Valera, Trujillo State, after complaining about a scarcity of surgical materials, medicines, and anesthetics.

Sulvia Torrealba, a nurse who is head of a nurses’ union active in several hospitals in Trujillo State was barred from entering the hospital that housed the union’s offices, where she worked, after she participated with colleagues in a press conference describing critical conditions in the hospital’s maternity ward

Oscar Arriechi and Yamileth Mendoza were arbitrarily detained in Lara State in February 2016, when they tried to stop members of the National Guard from detaining their 14-year-old son, whom they had sent to wait in line for food. Both were subject to abuse during detention and were charged in military courts. Mendoza was released pending trial and Arriechi spent 45 days in pretrial detention in a military prison.

Morexmar Chirinos was detained in May 2016, as she was leaving a protest about food scarcity. An officer beat her and called her an “AIDS-infested bitch.” She was held for a day with other females in a dirty, police-station bathroom used by male officers. Chirinos was charged with crimes including “violent attacks on public officials” and released after being warned not to participate in demonstrations or stand in line for subsidized goods.