Dayana contracted Covid in April 2021. Her husband, son, brother and mother-in-law caught it too, locked up at home with treatment from the beginning. Their house became a kind of medical center, with medicines, nurses, doctors and later with oxygen cylinders.
The relatives of the sick in Venezuela have to decide whether to take them to a health center or treat them at home. For people with minor symptoms, the circumstances are easier, they only need to buy some medicines and isolate themselves. The situation becomes more complicated when the patient worsens and requires intravenous treatment or oxygen.
Covid-19 has caused health centers around the world to overflow; in a place like Venezuela with hyperinflation, a humanitarian crisis, gasoline supply failures and delayed vaccination plans, the situation can get even harder.
The symptoms Dayana had and those of her relatives were totally different. She, a person with bronchial and hypertension problems for most of her life, only had severe joint pains and headaches. Her husband, an asthmatic, experienced fever and tiredness. Her son thought he would die on a couple of occasions from respiratory distress. And her 84-year-old mother-in-law was in bed and recovered without problems.
The greatest difficulties arose when Dayana’s brother decided to take care of them. José, a 49-year-old man with no pre-existing illnesses, soon became ill and his lungs could not resist the virus. The family decided to treat him at home due to the collapse of the public hospitals. Like everyone else in the family, he started all the treatment early on.
Sick people with health insurance can go to private clinics, hoping that the stay will not extend too long and that the coverage will support all the charges. But people without private health coverage depend on public hospitals, which have been questioned over the lack of supplies and the precarious conditions in some areas.
Many people prefer to be treated at home, even though they will not have professional, 24/7 care. To make sure they are receiving adequate treatment, they hire nurses or doctors to visit the home or use toll-free telephone lines run by medical schools.
Dayana’s family was attended by a nurse (the wife of one of her sons), who visited them daily to administer the intravenous treatments prescribed by the doctor. The physician went to the house three or four days a week and charged $20 per visit, a bargain compared to the doctor who charged them $70 and did not even listen to their chests.
Doctors and nurses risk their lives on a daily basis; those who work in homes use their own instruments and clothing to attend to their patients. They also have to stand in long lines to fill up their gasoline tanks in order to perform their role in society, a complicated task in these pandemic months.
When Dayana’s brother José worsened, he needed oxygen for more than ten days. The family got the cylinders on loan, through friends, which considerably reduced the expense. For the first few days he only needed one cylinder, but very quickly he started using four. His relatives refilled each one for $20.
They had to arrive at 6:00 a.m. to receive the cylinder four hours later. People told them about some free of charge sites, but the queues were interminable and the exposure to the disease was greater. They opted to pay. Relatives abroad helped them financially and they also received donations of medicines to cover all the expenses.
Social networks in Venezuela are the main tool used by many people to ask for help to buy medicines or oxygen cylinders. Not everyone can afford the cost in a country with an economic crisis. For their part, relatives abroad try to help and offer support through video calls.
While José was in his worst days, Dayana put a sleeping mat near José’s bed to keep him company, so he would not feel alone. But the lack of oxygen made him desperate; he needed to monitor his blood saturation values, because he knew his levels were slowly plummeting. When his doctor observed a marked deterioration, she ordered an urgent transfer to a hospital. A few hours, later José died.
They know that they did everything possible. They had all received the treatment indicated by the specialists (the same as they would have received in a health center), but each one reacted differently. They understand that the disease is complicated and for that reason there is no blame, only sadness and acceptance. They were all at risk and had the same medical care but, despite this, the family suffered a painful loss.