Nixon Vale is a university professor, but his passion has always been music.It had an extensive collection of instruments, but one by one it has been selling them.In total he was 17. Now, he barely has three left.
The 48 -year -old man has not only had to say goodbye to his musical possessions, but also of valuable metal garments and electronic equipment.All with the purpose of completing enough money to pay the treatment to their mother and their wife, both patients with diabetes and insulin -dependent.
“I have been selling things little by little to overcome this situation.My instruments, gold, garments.What I win is not enough to buy the insulin that my mother uses, but I have tried to sell as much as possible so that she does not stay without her medicines, ”he laments Nixon, who also suffers from type II diabetes and must get his own medications.
Inflation has his family with hands tied: the NPH insulin box that Nixon usedluxury.
Nor does the majority of the population: the medicine is equivalent to more than three minimum wages, according to the most recent increase announced by the Executive, on March 1, and which places the basic monthly income of a worker in Bs. 1.307,646.
The cost of insulin is also well above what Elkys del Carmen Hernández, 69 and Nixon's mother, can pay."She is retired from the Ministry of Education and with what Cobra does not even stop eating three months," laments the son.The pocket shrinks every time you must acquire insulin.
at the tip of donations and efforts
Given the impossibility of paying for treatment, dozens of patients have turned to social networks and foundations to find some donation.
It is Monday, March 26 and Nixon went to the Chacao municipality, in the Great Caracas, to withdraw insulin donations for his wife and mother.A contact in a health center told Mailyn Silva, Nixon's partner, that someone could help them, so with a few doses.
That seems to be the only way to get the insulin of Elkys del Carmen, because the media enabled by the State have served him little.In October last year, Nixon registered his mother in the 0-800-Salud system to receive the medicine.It was nothing but three months later, in January 2018, when he had the treatment in his hands."It was just a bottle and I was also defeated," he says.
The drama is not only to get the medication, but to send it to Elkys del Carmen to Valera, Trujillo state, where it resides.The son must travel 593 kilometers from the capital to the Venezuelan Andes to be able to deliver the hormone in time, before a decompensation occurs or, worse, a diabetic coma.
Sending the correspondence commission is prohibited and it is an almost as large risk as not to send it.
"We have tried to send him the drugs by mail, but on two occasions the parcels were lost," Nixon laments.Once they sent two boxes to the Central Hospital of Valera, where sexageneria was treated, but only one came to the hands of their relatives.The other insulin, suspicion, the same workers in the health center stole it.
Maylin Silva is Nixon's wife and patient with diabetes since the age of nine.He has also determined part of his belongings to be able to round for treatment."I had a sound equipment and a DVD, but I have been selling my things to buy my medicines," he says.
He needs insulin NPH and crystalline insulin to treat his condition, but both are as scarce as expensive.The maximum that mailyn has happened without the treatment havebeen just a few days.Like dozens of patients, it has been in need of reducing their doses to a minimum to make insulin.
The insulin -dependent patient is also transplanted.This 2018 turns eight since he received his new kidney.Its organ was deteriorated by medical complications and by the silent step of diabetes.
Since August 23, 2010, the date on which the operation was performed on Mailyn, the patient takes MyFortic and Rapamune, two vital immunosuppressive medications to avoid the rejection of the new kidney.Both are as difficult to get as insulin.
The two Mailyn treatments are counted.On Monday he received some doses of insulin and his reserve of immunosuppressants reaches him for another month.However, neither Mailyn nor Nixon faints in the face of disease, adversity and crisis."Here we are, fighting," says the patient.