Since 2015, Venezuela has faced one of the world’s most extreme economic and humanitarian crises. Now, over 1.5 million displaced Venezuelans are in neighboring Colombia.
The major overland exit point from Venezuela to Colombia is the Simon Bolivar bridge, with the city of Cúcuta on the Colombian side of the border. Since 2019, MedGlobal has supported the only primary care clinic dedicated to the full primary care needs of displaced Venezuelans in Cúcuta and the surrounding region of Norte de Santander. The clinic particularly focuses on critical maternal and child health.
Our team at the Comuneros clinic has provided over 30,000 patient consultations.
As COVID-19 spread in Colombia, MedGlobal adapted our services to include a robust COVID-19 response. In response to the growing number of Venezuelan migrants who are stuck on the border, MedGlobal has partnered with UNHCR to provide health services at the Tienditas Bridge in Cúcuta, where a shelter has been established to care for Venezuelans as the await permission to cross back into Venezuela.
The migrant crisis in Venezuela is the second largest worldwide after Syria. The challenge of this mass exodus is the healthcare condition of Venezuelan refugees. Venezuelan refugees require immediate healthcare services when arriving to receiving countries, both collapsing local healthcare systems and representing a public health threat if left untreated.
Unfortunately, the increase in migrants to Colombia has also resulted in an increase in rates of malnourishment among Venezuelans. Venezuelans are limited in jobs, housing, and resources to address their basic needs both in their home country and in the receiving countries to which they are migrating to.
In 2018 alone, there were more than 870,000 Venezuelan migrants in Colombia alone, with only 442,462 of these migrants capable of acquiring Permits of Permanence (PEP). PEP allows Venezuelans living in Colombia to access healthcare locally. This means that over half of the estimated displaced Venezuelans living in Colombia do not have access to healthcare, despite great government efforts.
With 27% of Venezuelan migrants being children, and many more being women of childbearing age, there is a dire need for primary care, pediatric care, and obstetric care. With increasing HIV rates, malaria outbreaks, and rising rates of malnourishment, and limited healthcare resources present, the situation for Venezuelan’s living in Colombia is dire.
March 20, 2020 In the midst of the deadly global COVID-19 pandemic, MedGlobal urges immediate and urgent action to support refugees, displaced persons, and the
The Venezuelan refugee exodus is the worst humanitarian crisis in the southern hemisphere, second only to the Syrian catastrophe. Fifteen percent of the population –
Marked by political repression, hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages, the crisis in Venezuela continues, unabated after five years of conflict. Once the richest country in
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