Mission Barrio Adentro

Mission Barrio Adentro (English: Into the Neighborhood Mission) is a Bolivarian national social welfare program established under late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. The program seeks to provide comprehensive publicly funded health care, dental care, and sports training to poor and marginalized communities in Venezuela. Barrio Adentro features the construction of thousands of iconic two-storey medical clinics—consultorios or doctor’s offices—as well as staffing with resident certified medical professionals. Barrio Adentro constitutes an attempt to deliver a de facto form of universal healthcare, seeking to guarantee access to quality and cradle-to-grave medical attention for all Venezuelan citizens.

The Latin American branch of the World Health Organization and UNICEF both praised the program. According to WHO statistics infant mortality fell from 23 to 20 in males and 19 to 17 in females per 1000 births between 2003 and 2005. In addition, Russian representatives have visited Venezuelan neighborhoods in order to study Venezuelan public clinics and Russian officials are considering implementing a similar program in Russia.

Of a planned 8500 Barrio Adentro I centers, 2708 had been built by May, 2007, using an investment of around US$126m, with a further 3284 under construction. As of 2006, the staff included 31,439 professionals, technical personnel, and health technicians, of which 15,356 were Cuban doctors and 1,234 Venezuelan doctors.

In 2014, the government celebrated 11 years of the mission announcing that over 10,000 clinics were created. In Caracas, Mission Barrio Adentro I and II centers in 32 parishes were the subject of constant complaints about performance even after being funded Bs 1.492 million by the government. Councilman Alejandro Vivas stated that "instead of having positive results, what is observed is the discontent of the citizens performance leaves much to be desired". As of December 2014, it was estimated that 80% of Barrio Adentro establishments were abandoned in Venezuela with the majority of Cuban medical personnel leaving the country.

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Wikipedia