‘The death of a baby is our daily bread,’ said a Caracas surgeon, referring to Venezuela’s collapsing hospitals. The economic crisis has exploded into a public health emergency, claiming the lives of untold victims. The unravelling has become so severe that the President has imposed a state of emergency and raised fears of a government collapse. In hospital wards there are no gloves or soap, and cancer medicines are only found on the black market. There is so little electricity that the government works just two days a week. At a hospital in Mérida there is no water to wash blood from operating tables, and doctors clean their hands with bottles of seltzer water. It is criminal that a country with such large oil reserves allows people to die for lack of antibiotics. The food shortage, due to a variety of government-imposed problems, is so severe that the opposition party is organising street protests to demonstrate the people’s needs. They need food, and the government is not getting it out fast enough. See: