Cataracts are not nice things at all
The subject is Peru’s health service. Today President Twobreakfasts told his little world that the Venezuelan-backed “Mision Milagro” (Miracle Mission) health service that was withdrawn from Peru earlier this month had performed 1,500 operations for Peru. He went on to favourably compare Peru’s ‘Essalud’ health service to that of the Mision . In his words;
“The Miracle Mission, and well done to them, operated on 1,500 (Peruvian) people in two years. Essalud, and better done, operated on 25,000 people in one year. And this is the best way of showing what is the good option, the most efficient option and therefore the people support it.”
This only shows that Twobreakfasts’ grip on reality is slipping fast. Some points to make:
- Essalud is the Peruvian semi-state health service. It is not free, as your average Peruvian has to pay a monthly quota for coverage. In fact Peru runs a two-tier hospital system with Essalud covering those who can afford it with an acceptable (nowhere near perfect, but acceptable) service and the virtually free SIS covering those who cannot afford Essalud with hospitals that have more cockroaches than patients.
- Thus Twobreakfasts compares a paying hospital system to a freely donated service available to one and all. Be clear that the 40% of Peruvians that live on U$2 or less per day don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being looked after by Essalud.
- The Mision Milagro is funded by Venezuela and currently covers every single Latin American country as a complementary service to any country’s health service. Every single one except for Peru that is, as the Twobreakfasts paranoia about all things Chávez chased them out of the country. Venezuela simply preferred to retire the Mision service from Peru rather than cause a political stink. But let’s repeat to make sure it’s understood; The Mision Milagro currently helps people in every single Latin American country bar one; Peru.
- We can split hairs about the 1,500 Peruvian people mentioned by Twobreakfasts and the 1,700 Peruvians that Venezuela claims have benefitted from the Mision. However it’s ridiculous (quite literally ‘worthy of ridicule’) that Twobreakfasts forgot to mention the sixteeen thousand Peruvians that have crossed the border into Bolivia in the last two years to get free operations under the Mision in the town of Copacabana.
The vast majority of those operations performed in Copacabana, Bolivia, were for cataracts, a procedure that costs real money in Peru. For many of the Mision operation recipients it was the difference between going blind and being able to see for the rest of their lives. This is the service that Twobreakfasts witchunted out of his country and refuses to recognize. This is the operation that he denies has helped 16,000 of his own citizens. We’re now at the point where he could tattoo “I don’t give a damn about the poor” on his forehead and it wouldn’t make a jot of difference to the image he presents.