In Venezuela crime spree, even hospitals are hit

[naaman fletcher]

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A young man dies of gunshot wounds, and enraged friends and relatives react by shooting up the hospital. A medical student leaving another hospital at the end of her shift is shot to death by a robber. Doctors working late take to sleeping in their workplace rather than risk being mugged.

In crime-ridden Venezuela, even hospitals are no longer safe.

No one was injured in the Aug. 20 shooting rampage at the Domingo Luciani Hospital in Caracas, but Eduardo Vargas, a 39-year-old nurse, recalled pulling children from their sickbeds as bullets broke windows and lodged in hospital beds.

"We took shelter in a closet and we threw ourselves to the ground," he said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hSWaXxDKPsWYjmsm8E2fHZP1bVbA?docId=5b7fd91d629041c3922da79de29e4f99

On the plus side, the government is for the people.

[Bacchus39]

1. beat me to it, one more paragraph for context

Last year, Venezuela's homicide rate was more than double that of Mexico, which is engulfed in drug-related violence, and the third highest in the region after Honduras and El Salvador. The Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a nongovernmental organization that tracks violent crime, says there were about 17,600 homicides last year, compared with a 2009 estimate of 15,241 in the U.S., which is over 10 times more populous than Venezuela.