A group of medical students from the Romulo Gallegos University, who are completing their training in Trujillo state, reported that regional health authorities are not providing them with the necessary security equipment to protect themselves from the Coronavirus, even though they have been conducting house-to-house screening activities since early April.
As a result, the young people, some of them in their senior year, must pay for their masks, gloves, and caps to fulfill their mission. They travel on foot to the communities closest to the clinic and, on occasion, are taken by the National Guard on their motorcycles to distant destinations.
Risky profession
A group of ten students claims to have a vocation, to be aware of their duty and the risks to which they are exposed. They go to the homes of people who have recently arrived in the country, or from other states with confirmed or suspected cases of Coronavirus. They update their medical histories, make them physical evaluations, and a blood test for screening. If they test negative, they are still monitored and visited again in three days.
“They don’t provide us with anything, so we buy our supplies: the surgical gowns, the gloves, and the appropriate mouthpieces because the cloth ones are no good for us,” said one of the future doctors, on the morning of this Monday, April 13.
