Venezuela mental health institutions struggle in economic crisis

Years of economic hardship are taking a shocking toll on Venezuela’s most vulnerable, leaving psychiatric patients without doctors, food or medicine.

All over Venezuela, mental health institutions are struggling to provide medication and care through the country’s economic crisis.

The government has blamed the sanctions imposed by the United States but doctors and facility workers said the problem began years ago.

As the political and economic crises in Venezuela worsen, it is likely that patients with mental illness and others among the country’s most vulnerable will fare the worst.

Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman reports from Tachira.