Venezuela Launches New Mission for Health of the Disabled

[subsuelo]

Mérida, March 17, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez inaugurated a new social program known as “mission” on Saturday, which focuses exclusively on the health of Venezuelans who have disabilities. The main goal of the Dr. José Gregorio Hernández Mission, which is inspired by the community health efforts of the legendary “People’s Doctor” of a century ago, is to carry out a door-to-door, nation-wide census to find out how many people have disabilities or genetic diseases and to diagnose their specific needs.

Chávez announced a budget of 592 million bolivars ($275.4 million) for the unprecedented census, which has already been carried out in five of Venezuela’s 23 states since last July, President Chávez explained.

So far, over 66,000 people with disabilities have been registered in the states of Miranda, Zulia, Delta Amacuro, Vargas, and Zulia. Another 83,324 have been registered in the capital municipality, Libertador, since the mission began there on February 21st of this year, according to a news program on the government television station VTV.

Chávez declared that the project should “incorporate more than the diagnosis… It is necessary to apply preventative programs and cover the immediate fundamental necessities.” He suggested that people with disabilities be “included in art groups, choir, work training programs…we hope that none of them remain out there, excluded and marginalized any more.”


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[Judi Lynn]

1. Doing something never done before. Unbelievable. I saved this article as soon as I read it.

It's important that the people of Venezuela are able to believe that this change for the better will be made permanent, and the country will never return to using the oil profits to pad out the personal wealth of the tiny elite again.

Venezuela is beginning to draw the attention for its REAL achievements, not the crap flung around by propagandists in hopes of generating enough hostility among intellectually lazy, spiritually perverted, or braindead right wing idiots to bring the new government down.

Thanks, subsuelo. Hope the new Mission Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez will take off like a wild fire and keep on going. It's badly needed there, and everywhere.