In the second of two reports, WMRA’s Kara Lofton takes a detailed look at the current Guatemalan healthcare crisis and the attempt of one UVA physician to provide some relief.
Guatemalan public hospitals are running out of money, fast. Many are in crippling debt to their suppliers who are now refusing to advance the credit necessary for hospitals to receive gloves, syringes, antibiotics and other basic medical supplies.
KAREN SOFIA ACEVEDO: It’s a national crisis, I think that right now we are heading to one of the worst situations we’ve had in health public services.
That is Karen Sofia Acevedo, the director of Hospital Regional de Occidente San Juan de Dios in Quetzaltenango. It’s the third largest hospital in Guatemala with a 360-bed capacity – a volume she says is not enough. I asked her what supplies they had run out of.
ACEVEDO: For example: gloves, needles, we just got a donation that we went to Guatemala…
Meaning Guatemala City
ACEVEDO: …to pick it up on Thursday and Friday, we didn’t have gloves for surgery or for emergency, but right now thanks to that donation we do.
Sometimes they get donations from non-profits or American hospitals. The University of Virginia, which has a partnership with a hospital in Totonicapan, sends a suitcase of tubing, bandages, gloves or scrubs with students or faculty participating in the UVA-Guatemala Initiative. Upon learning of my trip, program director doctor David Burt sent two suitcases of airway tubing with me. The hospital in Totonicapan was disappointed that the cases didn’t include more rubber gloves – they were completely out.
The root of the healthcare crisis is political corruption. Under former Guatemalan president Otto Pérez Molina, who left office in September, officials skimmed huge amounts of money from funds allocated to the Ministry of Health. In January, when Acevedo started as director, the regional hospital had only 60% of the resources they needed to operate and were 35 million Quetzals, or more than $4½ million US, in debt.
ACEVEDO: Daily we attend approximately between 500 and 700 people outpatients.
And there are always more people waiting to be admitted. When floors are full, patients are treated for three or four days in the emergency room.
[Sounds of people mingling in hallway]
The hallways of the hospital are packed with patients and their families. Many wait for hours to be seen on hard wooden benches that look suspiciously like old church pews. I stop to talk to a 17-year-old indigenous girl who declined to give her name.
GIRL: [Yo estoy aca porque tenia una cita…]
ENGLISH VOICEOVER: …I am here because I had an appointment. But I was in the hospital for a half year, I think, because I had an accident in a truck, the brakes went out. I’ve been hospitalized for a long time.
The accident was three years ago and resulted in a broken femur and six months of hospitalization. She had a number of surgeries to fix the leg. She walks, but not well – a reality she is still coming to grips with. Her brother and little sister were also in the accident, fate unknown. Another sister and her mother sat beside her on the bench. She had been in the hospital since 6 that morning – it was around 10 when we talked – and was still waiting to hear the results of an x-ray.
If the x-ray showed an infection, it is likely that her mother or sister would have had to leave the hospital and buy the necessary antibiotic at a pharmacy and then bring it back to be administered. Antibiotics, especially the strong ones, are in short supply.
Those who can afford to go to one of the many private hospitals. But for the great majority, many of whom barely have the resources to feed their families, the public system is the only option. Even wealthy citizens use the public hospitals for “expensive” diseases such as cancer treatment. There is no health insurance and so all fees at private hospitals must be paid out of pocket.
If the new regime, under fledgling president Jimmy Morales, doesn’t change something quickly, Acevedo estimates she will completely run out of supplies by December or January. She is matter-a-fact about her situation, but also believes they will survive. Miracles happen daily here, she said.
ACEVEDO: We are really depending of how much money we get these days to see if we can change a little bit. Because if we don’t pay suppliers they aren’t going to give us resources.
