Mission Barrio Adentro
Through Misión Barrio Adentro, Cuban doctors served Venezuelan communities where Venezuela's mostly white medical staff refused to work.
[1] In Caracas, Mission Barrio Adentro I and II centers in 32 parishes were the subject of constant complaints regarding performance even after receiving 1.492 million bolívares from the government.
[6] When Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1998, 70% of Venezuelans lacked regular access to health care and over 4 million children and adolescents experienced malnutrition.
[7]: 162 Through Misión Barrio Adentro, Cuban doctors served Venezuelan communities where Venezuela's mostly white medical staff refused to work.
[8]: 132–133 In 2003, Caracas's pro-Chávez mayor proposed the Barrio Adentro program to bring free local health care to poor areas in Libertador.
[7]: 164 In Caracas, Mission Barrio Adentro I and II centers in 32 parishes were the subject of constant complaints regarding performance even after receiving 1.492 million bolívares from the government.
[9] In Caracas, Mission Barrio Adentro I and II centers in 32 parishes were the subject of constant complaints about performance even after being funded 1.492 million Bolivares by the government.
[2] One academic study noted that the successes of the Barrio Adentro program in 2003 and 2004 may have "crucially influenced" Chávez's 59% to 41% victory in the 2004 Venezuelan recall referendum.
[10] Arachu Castro, Assistant Professor of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, wrote that the programme has achieved "the materialization of the right to health care for millions of Venezuelans".
[6] In July 2007, Douglas León Natera, chairman of The Venezuelan Medical Federation, reported that up to 70% of the Barrio Adentro modules had been either abandoned or were left unfinished.
[18] Solidarity Without Borders also stated that Cuban personnel cannot refuse to work, cannot express complaints, may be blackmailed, and suffer threats against their family in Cuba.
[23] But they also "described a system of deliberate political manipulation"; their services as medical professionals "were wielded to secure votes for the governing Socialist Party, often through coercion," they told The New York Times.
