A fictionalized true story of true misery.
Lucky Misery
Maria’s miserable pension did not even cover one of the eight medications in her prescription. She needed at least $26 for 10 pills of Corazem. She needed three months of pensions to cover one month of treatment. How to get the other seven? How to get food or anything else?
She was told they were giving free medicine at the Red Cross, but she needed to be there very early. She swallowed her pride and asked her son-in-law to take her. Their conflicting relationship was what you may called “normal”, but her verbal incontinence did not help.
As agreed, he was ready by 6:30 am. Just a cup of coffee and off they went. It was just six blocks away but her thrombosed legs did not allow for much speed. It took them about twenty minutes to get to the Red Cross.
There were four other women already waiting, but only one was there to ask for free medication. Some had come from across the peninsula to have some lab test done (it was cheaper than in most labs, or so they said) and had been up since 4:00 am; another one was there to see a certain doctor.
More people started to drop in every five minutes or so. By 7:00 the personnel had not arrived yet. “Why do they ask us to be here so early if they are not going to be here early?” someone asked. Two women arrived at about 7:30 looking like they were in charge of opening and organizing patients. They unlocked the doors and got inside. They addressed the impatient patients only to tell them that they should form an orderly line in the order in which they had arrived. By 8:00 there were more than 20 people outside and they had not hinted at allowing the patients to get in and sit comfortably inside. They did pop out for a second, though, to warn them that it was dangerous to use cell phones out there. It was a “guillotine,” they said.
Most of the patients were elders. They could not understand why they were not allowed to wait inside where it was more comfortable and safer.
The people in charge of the free medication arrived at about 9:00. At least they were fast at lifting up a tent and providing plastic chairs for the patients. They were bossy, though. They wanted to see impeccable prescriptions, properly signed and sealed, with clear instruction for each medication. Most elders had gotten theirs at improvised outpatient “hospitals,” from what we might also call improvised doctors who were actually writing prescriptions on improvised pads (any usable side of paper would do).
Some old people were turned down because their prescriptions were not properly written. Others because their prescriptions lack instructions.
María saw how these people, some younger than her but looking more battered, left the place looking shorter than they were when they arrived. They also walked slower. When her turned came, the Red Cross girl decided to go for a cup of coffee. She made María wait five more minutes. Then, the girl with the Red Cross vest was not sure if they had all the eight medications Maria had in her prescription. They were supposed to fill up a form that the patient had to take inside where the actual pharmacy was. In that form they were supposed to write only the names of the medicines they had in stock, but they did not have that information out there. A computerized system? An app? that was too much to ask. It’s the Venezuelan Red Cross, ok?
After much debating and time wasting, the vested girl got up less enthusiastically than when she went for the coffee, and went inside to ask about the drugs. She came back with bad news. They only had one, aspirins.
So much ado for some aspirins, Maria thought. “I feel so miserable.”
“That’s better than nothing,” the girl in the Red Cross vest said. “Now go inside and stand in the line to get your medication,” she added.
How much joy can you find in a death row meeting? The joy of a consumption patient, they call it here. “At least I did not come on a boat from the other coast,” María said to herself as consolation. The women who came from across the peninsula for lab tests had been told the lab would not open. They did not know when it would open. They just had to keep coming; one day, they may get lucky.
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