A crowdfunding campaign has successfully achieved the goal of their pilot program: help 100 doctors and nurses with a $100 contribution during the pandemic. Now Valiu wants to reach all nurses fighting COVID-19 in Mérida, and they need our help.
By Caracas Chronicle – Gabriela Mesones Rojo
Sep 28, 2020
When Aurimar Rangel started working as a nurse three years ago at Nuestra Señora del Rosario Hospital in Zulia State, she wasn’t afraid of the many reports of doctors and patients that highlighted how broken Venezuela’s public health system was. She was in love with her profession, and wanted to work and help people the best way she knew how: caring for patients during their most vulnerable moment. But with the arrival of the pandemic, Aurimar’s workplace changed: “Since 2017, everything has changed. We’re one of the countries with more deaths of healthcare staff due to COVID-19. No one had ever seen a virus like this, and the hospital, also a sentinel center that takes patients with coronavirus, has never been more unequipped to handle a crisis: lack of staff, no supplies, intermittent basic services and fear are part of our daily lives now.”
Aurimar takes her time listing all the things she had when she started working as a nurse that she doesn’t have now: a room for medical staff to rest, a kitchen to cook during breaks, access to gasoline and a salary that could at least help her to buy food for herself and her son. “We’ve been working under difficult circumstances for a long time, but the pandemic exposed us all. Now, lack of supplies could have an effect on our health and our life; and even though the risks are huge, our salary is one of our biggest problems”.
Aurimar’s monthly salary is $1.6, but she still refuses to leave the hospital, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. She says it’s all a matter of vocation, love, and worry for her patients and her community in Barrio San José.
Her situation was critical, until a doctor recommended a new pilot program and asked her to enroll: it was an ongoing campaign that aimed at helping 100 doctors and nurses with $100 a month. She was one of the first ten people in the trial, which benefited with a contribution as a precedent exploration for the project, with funds recollected by a group of friends and private investors. Valiu is the application, and their social project sends previously selected medical staff $100 a month, which they can transfer to their account in bolivars within an hour of requesting it. “The contribution has been fundamental for us to handle the pandemic: it has helped us buy food for our families; but it has also helped us buy some of the medical supplies we need,” Aurimar says without doubt.
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Read More: Caracas Chronicle – Valiu wants to help nurses survive the pandemic
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