Maravi

Chavez threatens to nationalise privately owned hospitals

Chavez threatens to nationalise privately owned hospitals
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Saturday July 07, 2007 [04:00]

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez has threatened to nationalise privately-owned hospitals if they fail to reduce healthcare costs. In a nationally televised speech, also carried by radio Havana Cuba, President Chavez called for transforming of the 'savage' capitalist market policies practiced by private hospitals and clinics into a market of solidarity.

"If the owners of the private clinics don't want to obey the laws then the private clinics will be nationalised," President Chávez said. "This is the evil of capitalism."

President Chávez said avoiding capitalist tendencies made him expand the public-health system, building new clinics and refurbishing hospitals. Currently, thousands of Cuban and Venezuelan doctors live in poor neighbourhoods where they provide free care as part of the Barrio Adentro programme.

And on Tuesday, President Chavez said Venezuela would withdraw its bid to join South America's trading bloc, MERCOSUR, if Brazilian and Paraguayan lawmakers did not approve his country's membership before September.

"We are not desperate to enter MERCOSUR and much less so when we feel that there is little willingness within MERCOSUR for change," President Chavez said.

MERCOSUR leaders have approved Venezuela's entry into the bloc but the deal must be approved by Brazilian and Paraguayan lawmakers.
The legislatures of Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela have already given their approval.

President Chavez sees MERCOSUR as a means for South American nations to unite against US economic and political influence in the region. But he said MERCOSUR member countries appeared unwilling to break with US-style capitalism. President Chavez said if Brazil insisted to make the Venezuelan membership in the Common Market of the South conditional, "then we are not becoming members."

President Chavez branded as imprudent Brazilian foreign affairs minister Celso Amorin's remarks asking Chávez to apologise for his comments against the Brazilian Congress. President Chavez said Venezuela had nothing to apologise for with the Brazilian Congress but rather the Brazilian Congress should apologise for interfering with Venezuelan domestic affairs.

The Brazilian Parliament endorsed a resolution condemning non-renewal of the broadcast licence for private television station Radio Caracas Television (RCTV). President Chávez said some foreign lawmakers wanted Venezuela to change its domestic policies. He said since 1999 the rightwing in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina blocked the possibility for Venezuela to approach MERCOSUR.

Labels: HUGO CHAVEZ, NATIONALISATION, VENEZUELA

posted by MrK @ 3:46 AM