Eyewitnesses to a revolution

Barry Healy, Perth

Venezuela is making great gains in health-care delivery, said local doctor Colin Hughes in an eyewitness account of his recent visit as part of an Australia-Venezuela solidarity brigade. At the public meeting in Darlington on October 15, Hughes stressed the work that Cuban doctors are doing in Venezuela.

Poor Venezuelans, previously excluded from the health system, are now receiving free care in the communities where they live, no matter how remote, Hughes said. The Cuban doctors combine formal medical care with extensive community education campaigns. Cuba is also training Venezuelan medical students.

Hughes said his visit to Venezuela had convinced him that socialism is the only system that can bring about adequate health care for all.

Another brigade member, Len Howle, described his negative experience of the pro-capitalist Caracas police, highlighting the fact that the Venezuelan revolution is still a work in progress. Perth Resistance organiser Emma Clancy emphasised the role of young people in organising communities. The youth of Barrio 23 Enero, one of the poorest neighbourhoods, had emerged as community leaders, she said, responsible for driving out the corrupt police and minimising crime. Clancy said she was amazed by the high participation of ordinary people in politcal life.

Thirty people attended the event, which was one of a public forum series organised by the Perth Hills branch of the Socialist Alliance.

From Green Left Weekly, October 26, 2005.

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From GLW issue 646