CARACAS, (Reuters) – While hemophilia sufferer Sergio Tovar lay in agony for five days at a hospital in Venezuela, his friends and family scoured hospitals and pharmacies looking for life-saving drugs.
Eventually a cousin, Jenny Sequeda, helped find a substitute for the protein coagulant Tovar needs for his blood condition.
Almost everywhere they went in the southwestern state of Apure it was the same story: a lack of dollars meant importers had stopped purchasing the medicine.
“Everyone who has hemophilia, their life is at risk,” said Sequeda, whose 6-year-old son also suffers from the illness.
He last received supplies of his blood medicine in January, which he has to take two times a week.
Many importers have run up big debts with providers abroad due to red tape and delays acquiring dollars through the state currency agency.
In some cases, they say, credit lines have been frozen and deliveries held up.
The shortage of medicines is part of broader economic turmoil that forces Venezuelans to routinely form hours-long lines outside shops to buy staples such as cooking oil, flour and milk.
Alongside annual inflation of 57 percent, the shortages and queues were a main driver of a wave of opposition-led street protests that broke out around the country early last month.
At least 31 people have been killed.
Companies that import and make medicines and medical items say they now owe their suppliers some $1.2 billion.
“Of every 10 products we request from distributors, we find five or sometimes fewer,” said Freddy Ceballos, president of Pharmaceuti-cal Federation of Venezuela.
SHORTAGE OF MACHINERY TOO
Ceballos said President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist administration recently vowed to come up with a timetable under which they would get more dollars to his members, but that they had heard nothing more since.
Government officials say they have to examine requests for dollars to stop importers buying dollars at the official rate of 6.3 bolivars – then selling them on the black market for about 10 times that much. That causes delays in dollar disbursements.
