This collapsing socialist state is suffering one of the most dramatic outflows of human talent in modern history, with Aquiles Nazoa offering a glimpse into what happens when a nation begins to empty out.
Vast gaps in Venezuela's labour market are causing a breakdown in daily life, and robbing this nation of its future. The exodus is broad and deep - an outflow of doctors, engineers, oil workers, bus drivers and electricians.
So far this year, 48,000 teachers - or 12 per cent of all staff at primary and high schools nationwide - have quit, according to Se Educa, an educational group. The vast majority, according to the group, have joined a stampede of Venezuelans leaving the country to escape food lines and empty grocery store shelves.
During the first five months of the year, roughly 400,000 Venezuelans have fled the country, following 1.8 million who left over the last two years, according to the Central University of Venezuela. Yet even those numbers may not fully capture the scope of the exodus. Aid workers dealing with the crisis in bordering nations say an average of 4600 Venezuelans a day have been leaving since January 1 - putting the outflow during this year alone at nearly 700,000.
At the Jose Manuel de los Rios Children's Hospital in Caracas, 68 doctors - or 20 per cent of the medical staff - quit and left the country over the past two years. The hospital's cardiology department is now only open for a morning shift, since three of its six specialists are gone. There are 300 vacant nursing positions. Personnel shortages are so bad that the facility can only staff two of its seven operating rooms.
"It now takes eight months to a year for a surgery appointment," said Huniades Urbina, a senior staff pediatrician.
This year, thousands of blackouts have hit Venezuela, darkening cities for weeks at a time. A lack of imported spare parts to fix the poorly maintained power grid is one problem. But so is "the flight of our trained workers," said Aldo Torres, executive director of the Electricity Federation of Venezuela, an association of labour unions.
"Every day, we're receiving dozens of calls from colleagues saying they're going to Colombia, Peru and Ecuador," Torres said. "They're being replaced by people who are mostly not qualified."
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