British aid teams have begun assessing the damage after a luxury country club in Caracas was hastily converted into a makeshift hospital amid Venezuela's deepening healthcare crisis. The club, once a playground for the elite with its golf courses and swimming pools, now houses hundreds of patients on stretchers in its grand ballroom. Medical supplies are scarce.
Doctors work by torchlight. The NHS-style free care promised by the government has collapsed under hyperinflation and sanctions. For the working class, this is not a shock.
They have been queuing for bread and medicine for years. But the sight of the rich losing their sanctuaries signals a levelling that even the most hardened union organiser might find grim. The British assessment team, led by a former NHS trauma surgeon, reports that the makeshift wards lack basic sanitation.
Wounds are becoming infected. There are no painkillers. The team has brought field dressings and antibiotics, but the need is overwhelming.
This is not just a crisis of medicine. It is a crisis of inequality. The country club was built on oil wealth that never trickled down.
Now that wealth is gone, and the clubhouse is a hospice. The British government has pledged £2 million in emergency aid, but critics say it is a drop in the ocean. Meanwhile, the unions in Venezuela are calling for international debt relief, not charity.
They argue that the country's resources were looted by corrupt elites and foreign interests. The British team will stay for two weeks. They will treat the wounded, count the dead, and file a report.
But the real story is not the aid. It is the system that failed. The kitchen tables of Caracas are empty.
The country club is full. And the British taxpayer is footing the bill for a crisis that was decades in the making.
