Chronic illness and diarrhoea surge in quake-hit Venezuelan communities as humanitarian crisis builds

Vic­tims of the pow­er­ful twin earth­quakes that jolt­ed Venezuela last month as well as peo­ple spared by the de­struc­tion on Thurs­day flood­ed re­lief ser­vices of­fered by non­govern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tions in the hard­est-hit ar­eas.

The de­mand for help comes as the Unit­ed Na­tions launched an ap­peal for rough­ly $300 mil­lion to as­sist 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple in ur­gent need of aid in the South Amer­i­can coun­try where non­govern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tions un­til re­cent­ly were tar­gets of gov­ern­ment re­pres­sion. Mo­bile kitchens and clin­ics as well as field hos­pi­tals now dot pub­lic spaces in the north­ern state of La Guaira, where most of the dev­as­ta­tion oc­curred.

“It is clear at dis­place­ment sites that, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter two weeks, that peo­ple are turn­ing up be­cause they haven’t been able to get their oth­er treat­ments,” U.N. re­lief chief Tom Fletch­er told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press dur­ing his vis­it to Venezuela. “So, they’re not turn­ing up with just the frac­tures now, they’re turn­ing up with those longer-term health needs. And it’s vi­tal that we’re there for them.”

Doc­tors treat­ing peo­ple in that state’s Ca­tia La Mar com­mu­ni­ty on Thurs­day re­port­ed an in­crease in skin con­di­tions and di­ar­rheal dis­eases, as well as of re­quests for med­ica­tions for the treat­ment of chron­ic ill­ness­es, in­clud­ing di­a­betes and high blood pres­sure. The emerg­ing dis­eases can be tied to crowd­ed liv­ing spaces and poor wa­ter and san­i­ta­tion con­di­tions, which in many com­mu­ni­ties pre­date the earth­quakes.

Ir­ma Echar­ri showed up at a mo­bile unit on a side­walk across the street from a church with the box­es of the eye­drops and pain re­liev­er she usu­al­ly takes, hop­ing that doc­tors there could give her new ones. She al­so want­ed to be seen for the pain she de­vel­oped in her nose af­ter the June 24 earth­quakes.

“It hurts a lot,” Echar­ri, 67, said while wait­ing to be seen. “It hurts be­cause it hurts.”

Echar­ri’s home was not dam­aged, but many of her neigh­bors are liv­ing in tem­po­rary shel­ters or out­doors af­ter 190 build­ings col­lapsed and 856 oth­ers were dam­aged, ac­cord­ing to Venezue­lan of­fi­cials, in the back-to-back earth­quakes that killed 3,811 peo­ple.

The gov­ern­ment of act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez has es­ti­mat­ed that the earth­quakes left about 18,000 peo­ple with­out a home. The dis­placed are now liv­ing in schools, side­walks, parks, plazas and oth­er pub­lic spaces.

Fletch­er, the head of the U.N. Of­fice for the Co­or­di­na­tion of Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Af­fairs, told AP the Unit­ed States has so far pro­vid­ed most of the earth­quake-re­sponse aid. Much of the as­sis­tance on the ground is be­ing de­liv­ered by lo­cal groups that have part­nered with glob­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an or­ga­ni­za­tions.

Among the dis­placed is Zul­bey Reyes, who went to the clin­ic ran by the Venezuela-based or­ga­ni­za­tion Paluz in part­ner­ship with the glob­al re­lief agency In­ter­na­tion­al Res­cue Com­mit­tee. Reyes, who was al­so robbed by the earth­quakes of her job as a nan­ny, sought treat­ment for the on­set of chest pain.

“I thought it was my heart that was sick,” Reyes, 41, said af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed and re­ceiv­ing med­ica­tion. “But it’s a nerve that be­came in­flamed af­ter the screams that day.”

The Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice for Dis­as­ter Risk Re­duc­tion has es­ti­mat­ed di­rect phys­i­cal dam­age to hous­ing and in­fra­struc­ture around $37 bil­lion.

The wide­spread pres­ence of non­govern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tions in the coun­try and the free­dom with which the gov­ern­ment con­trasts with the re­pres­sion and per­se­cu­tion to which they were sub­ject­ed in re­cent years. While Ro­driguez served as vice pres­i­dent to for­mer Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, or­ga­ni­za­tions were re­peat­ed­ly ac­cused of an­ti-gov­ern­ment ac­tiv­i­ties and the U.N. lo­cal hu­man rights of­fice ex­pelled.

“When you have a cri­sis of this mag­ni­tude, peo­ple put the pol­i­tics to one side and are able to fo­cus on sav­ing as many lives as pos­si­ble, and that’s what I’m see­ing so far in this re­sponse,” Fletch­er said. —CA­TIA LA MAR, Venezuela (AP)

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Sto­ry by REGI­NA GAR­CIA CANO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press