Venezuela’s legitimate interim President Juan Guaidó is helping doctors and nurses fight COVID-19 — and survive the pandemic themselves — by paying them a living wage.
“It is the first time in history that funds recovered and protected against the dictatorship are used for the benefit of Venezuelans,” Guaidó said September 5 when the Health Heroes program began.
“While the dictatorship steals, we protect our people, and that is why we protected the assets of the republic. Now the dictatorship cannot continue to steal that money. On the contrary, we use it to save lives,” Guaidó said.
The interim Venezuelan government, led by Guaidó, launched the program in September, using frozen assets seized from the illegitimate regime of Nicolás Maduro under sanctions by the United States. The interim government will have distributed a total of $18 million to workers in Venezuela’s health sector when the program concludes.
The average health care worker’s salary comes to about $5 per month because of the inflation and economic collapse caused by Maduro’s illegitimate regime.
But Guaidó’s program sends monthly payments of $100 into the bank accounts of those who work at hospitals — from doctors and nurses to the staff — for three months.
Health Heroes has helped 62,700 health care workers put food on their tables and provide for their families during the pandemic.
“For what someone like me makes, that’s like a million dollars. It felt like more money than I’d ever had in my life,” Yurymay Diaz, a hospital security guard, told Reuters.
