facing life or death pregnant venezuelans flee
Sunday 23 February 2025
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today

To Colombia

Facing life or death, pregnant Venezuelans flee

Arab Today, arab today

Arab Today, arab today Facing life or death, pregnant Venezuelans flee

Marbella Nino she would have had to purchase all the surgical equipment for her C-section
Cucuta (Colombia) - AFP

Dayana Zambrano's belly is remarkably small for a woman nearly nine months pregnant.

Malnutrition suffered due to Venezuela's downward economic spiral forced her to move to Colombia for medical attention -- so she could give birth without it becoming a matter of life and death.

She journeyed more than 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) by bus from eastern Venezuela's Ciudad Bolivar to reach Cucuta, Colombia for medical care, one of many pregnant Venezuelans looking outside their crisis-stricken country's borders for vital care.

She recently arrived at the university hospital Erasmo Meoz with an excessively low weight for her advanced stage of pregnancy.

"Thank God, my weight increased and the doctor told me the baby is doing well," the 21-year-old woman told AFP. "He just needed to grow his lungs a little bit, because they were tiny."

Zambrano's decision to flee her country reflects the increasingly dire situation in Venezuela.

Amid the South American country's turbulent political and economic crisis, infant mortality reached 30.12 percent in 2016, with nearly 11,500 deaths of children between zero and one year old.

The maternal mortality rate has exploded to 65 percent, according to the Venezuelan Ministry of Health.

- Spiraling costs -

Zambrano's baby developed at an unusually slow rate because of his mother's malnutrition: "I did not eat three times a day," she said, opting instead to feed her one-year-old daughter. 

During her exhausting trek to Colombia, she began to bleed, she said, due to complications with the placenta.

Pale and petite, she is nevertheless feeling better, having reached 34 weeks of pregnancy in a public hospital where her care is cost-free.

In the neighboring room, Joselys Canas, 19, is relieved that her son was born in Cucuta, where she settled with her mother just over a year ago after leaving Maracaibo, a Venezuelan state that borders Colombia.

She said she was "very lucky, especially because there are no medicines there -- there's nothing."

The number of Venezuelan patients at the hospital "has increased exponentially," said its director, Juan Agustin Ramirez.

Between September and December 2015, 655 Venezuelans were treated there, compared to 2,300 in 2016 and 1,400 already this year -- generating a cost of more than $1.6 million, Ramirez said.

- Chronic shortages -

Pregnant women arrive without having received prenatal checks, he said, meaning they are automatically classified as at-risk patients.

"If we end up with a tragedy of great proportions -- a displacement of Venezuelans -- we will need to ask for international aid," Ramirez said, to establish field hospitals for refugees.

If Marbella Nino, 22, had delivered Joshier in Venezuela, she would have had to purchase all the surgical equipment for her C-section.

She could not find the supplies, she said. But even if she had, the young mother said: "Truthfully, I don't have the money to buy it." 

The Colombian hospital even gave her diapers for her baby, a rare find on the other side of the border.

"I preferred to give birth here, where I could be vaccinated and better monitored," she said. 

Nino is preparing to return to Venezuela in three weeks, and now worries of her country's chronic shortages of food and medicines.

"Imagine him getting sick there!" she said of her son.

arabstoday
arabstoday

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

facing life or death pregnant venezuelans flee facing life or death pregnant venezuelans flee

 



Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

facing life or death pregnant venezuelans flee facing life or death pregnant venezuelans flee

 



GMT 18:03 2016 Sunday ,11 September

Low interest rates are a drag on US bank profits

GMT 10:11 2017 Thursday ,07 December

US lawmakers deny Democrat's bid to impeach Trump

GMT 12:58 2017 Sunday ,15 January

US 'hostility' grows despite nuclear deal

GMT 09:34 2017 Thursday ,19 October

Croatia court orders arrest of retail giant boss

GMT 22:40 2018 Friday ,05 January

Education Minister attends workshop

GMT 16:33 2012 Wednesday ,15 February

Second generation coupe

GMT 12:50 2017 Wednesday ,25 October

Irish star Zebo risks Test future over Racing move

GMT 03:32 2017 Tuesday ,05 December

Sisi vows forceful response after mosque massacre

GMT 12:24 2017 Thursday ,02 February

Egyptians overjoyed by reaching AFCON 2017 final

GMT 19:58 2017 Saturday ,01 April

Lebanese Army Reports New Israeli Breach

GMT 21:24 2017 Thursday ,16 February

S. Korea's ICT Exports Increase in January

GMT 18:42 2017 Sunday ,08 October

Nasr heads for US Wednesday for World Bank meetings

GMT 04:31 2017 Monday ,25 September

Russian general killed fighting IS in east Syria

GMT 08:25 2018 Monday ,10 December

Ardern apologizes to parents of slain backpacker

GMT 14:17 2018 Tuesday ,18 September

Syria welcomes agreement on Idleb announced in Sochi

GMT 12:47 2018 Saturday ,13 January

Cabinet meets in ordinary session

GMT 08:54 2015 Sunday ,13 December

'Youth' dominates European Film Academy awards
Arab Today, arab today
 
 Arab Today Facebook,arab today facebook  Arab Today Twitter,arab today twitter Arab Today Rss,arab today rss  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
arabstoday, Arabstoday, Arabstoday