Homage to Comandante Tomás Borge Martínez
to the VIII Anniversary of the Transit to Immortality
and Celebration of International Workers' Day
April 30th 2020
Address of President Comandante Daniel Ortega Saavedra
Good afternoon, Nicaraguan sisters and brothers, families of these Blessed Lands of Diriangén, of Nicarao, of Darío, of Sandino.
Today is the 8th anniversary of the transit to Immortality of our brother, Comandante Tomás Borge. He had been in the struggle even before the Sandinista Front was founded. Already in 1956, when Rigoberto executed the tyrant imposed by the Yankees, who murdered Sandino, Tomás, a young law student was captured with Ausberto, with Edwin Castro, with Cornelio Silva, who later had them murdered. Cornelio, Ausberto, and Edwin, the father of Edwin, our Comrade leader of the Sandinista Front in the National Assembly. Tomás was already there in the struggle. And Carlos, who was a boy studying at secondary school, was in the streets with other young people calling for Tomás' freedom.
So on this day, on the eve of May 1st, the Day of the Workers of the World, of the Workers, of workers of the formal sector who are fewer and fewer, as industrial activity is becoming automated, so there are fewer and fewer workers. There are companies where robots are already present, along with only one or two people, to make sure that the robot works perfectly. And workers already disappeared from that Company.
That's why informal employment has grown so much... They're workers! That is to say, this scheme of thinking that only those who are in the formal sector are workers, makes no sense, because Capitalism itself has been responsible, throughout its development, for throwing people into unemployment, first, when the machines began, with industry, with the Industrial Revolution, and workers, desperate, threw themselves into destroying the machines there in Europe, in England; desperate because they saw in the machine an enemy that came to take their jobs.
Of course, in the end the machine prevailed, which generated immense unemployment in developed countries, and now in these times, times of high technology, where great industries are being automated, vehicles are put together by robots there in the factory, where workers no longer play a part.
That is why, on the eve of May 1st, we salute all the workers of the World, and those workers, who were not recognized as such, women, who even in the capitalist countries were denied the right to work... And how hard it was for them to achieve that right! And then, to work, but at a disadvantage in relation to men. And that woman working in the home too, as if it were not work working in the home, as if it were not work to be there giving love to the children, caring for the children, as if it were not work to be washing and ironing, Mothers who are both mother and father and who do all the cooking, and others who manage to get a job and have to go out each morning to work.
So our greeting to all the workers of the world, both those who are still in the formal sector, who are fewer and fewer, and those who are in the informal sector, who are becoming more and more.
And well, the Workers who of course carry out rural activities, the farmers, the food producers, in our case, in our country, there are workers who start work in the early hours of the morning. In some farms still, there are many farms here of with livestock on the range, using traditional practices, where the workers are already up and about at 3 or 4 in the morning, the "hands" they call them in the farms. These "hands" are worthy workers, they go saddle the horses and go around the countryside gathering the cattle in for milking. They are rural workers, just like those who prepare the land, for sowing, for the production of basic grains, for the production of vegetables.
And the workers who are in the State, serving the population, and I would say on that score that health workers have the most sensitive tasks, it is the most sensitive task, because it's about looking after the life, the health of Nicaraguans. And the teachers. Without education, without culture, there is no future, and these teachers guarantee us education and culture.
And these other two great forces of workers fundamental for the stability and security of the country are workers, the army soldiers the and workers of the National Police.
And the workers of the Ministry of the Interior who are in charge of safeguarding everything related to transit through the country. And too, we also have our comrades in Customs, who do not rest, the Customs officers, who are at the border posts, both on overland and in the ports, in the airports, working tirelessly.
Even on days when we are resting, they must always be on duty, both in the health sector and in the army, the police, as well as the comrades who work at the border Posts, in customs, and in immigration, they have to guarantee these activities. They do not have the complet rest that statutory holidays offer.
Then we have the brother and sisters who drive the ambulances. There they go rushing with the ambulances to bring back alive people who have suffered an accident, whether it was a car accident or an accident to their organs, like someone who suffered a heart attack, or who suffered from a low or a high sugar level. They rush to take them alive to the hospital so that in the hospital they can manage to save the person's life.
And how many other workers, how many workers in different activities. The fire fighters, likewise, who are always on alert, with that vocation they have, with that passion they have, to attend to fires, fires that we have here in Nicaragua, and fires are all over the world, more and more fires, thanks to the imbalances that the development of global capitalism has caused on the Planet.
Just as they have thrown millions and millions of human beings into unemployment in the good times of capitalism, never mind when crises come, so do workers end up on the street. The capitaists are unable to use their immense fortunes, to pay money to support those workers... No, they're fired and that's it!
This is what is happening in the world right now, savage capitalism throwing workers into unemployment, as a result of the pandemic. Many capitalists are happy with the pandemic and, of course, the most powerful ones are already doing their best to take over companies that cannot keep going and whose values are falling; so they are ready to knock them out so as to accumulate more wealth. And if wealth is already concentrated in a minority right now, after the situation the world going through is going that minority appropriating capital is going to be much smaller.
With the exception, naturally, of countries where socially oriented projects are in progress with a Christian orientation. Christianity's essence is to demand justice, to vindicate the poor... Christ said it well: It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. That's what He said, that is what He said. That's the strength of Christianity, the strength of Christ.
And we still find those who worship the golden calf, there are always those who worship the golden calf, the pharisees, the priests who worship the golden calf and kiss the feet and lick the feet of the Empire. They are the same ones that Jesus Christ went to whip out of the temple, and he called them, "whited sepulchres”. That's what He said to them, yes. Human nature, human wretchedness, falsifying values.
But people do have that spirit, they have that drive, and that is why so many battles have been fought, so many struggles in the world, and they continue to fight. At this moment a battle is being fought, where savage capitalism wants to take advantage of this pandemic to exercise greater control over wealth, and impose its tyranny with greater force, because savage capitalism is a tyranny that disguises itself, like false priests do, disguising itself as democracy.
So they want to take advantage of this situation, for what? To exercise greater control, and we are seeing what they are doing, in the midst of this situation by intensifying sanctions against peoples, sanctions that are aggressions. Because no UN international body has approved any sanctions against Cuba; on the contrary, the UN is speaking out for the blockade against Cuba to be lifted.
Year after year, the overwhelming majority of countries at the United Nations, with two exceptions, have voted to lift the blockade, but since democracy is not respected and the tyranny of savage capitalism has been installed in the world, then the United Nations is of no use, because the votes of more than 190 nations are not respected, which is the average number always voting to lift the blockade against Cuba.
Taking advantage of current circumstances, the representatives of savage capitalism are attacking the Venezuelan people with greater fury, violence and venom, applying measures that are totally insane, which shows what that Martí was right when he said: "I knew the monster, because I lived in its entrails”. Because he lived in the United States and knew the monster well, that is how Martí defined the US.
It's a monster flailing with its paws all over the place, taking advantage of a tragedy, for what? To try to destroy Cuba, to try to destroy Venezuela, to try to destroy Nicaragua... Yes! And launching itself against countries that are now great powers, it launches itself into a total confrontation.
Our Solidarity, on this day then, with the people of Cuba, with the people of Martí, of Fidel, our Solidarity with the Government of Cuba led by Comrade Miguel Díaz-Canel and with the guidance always of Commander Raúl Castro, Comandante Victorioso.
And our Solidarity with Brother Nicolas Maduro. Today Nicolas sent a brief message of greeting on the occasion of Tomás' anniversary. Nicolás was here for Tomás' funeral honors, he accompanied us in the Plaza, he was there, and how grateful we are toNicolás for that Message. And we do indeed say to Nicolás that the Nicaraguan people have great love and affection for the Bolivarian Revolution, for the Venezuelan people, for Comandante Chávez, under the mantle of Bolivar that covers us all.
And Nicolas is leading this battle, one of the hardest battles any government in Our America has ever faced against the Empire, and one he is managing to fight victoriously. And the barbarians have gone to the extreme of moving their warships there in the area, under the pretext that they are fighting drug trafficking.
Let them fight drug trafficking in the United States! The biggest drug traffickers in the world are there in the United States, because that is where there is the biggest consumption in the world. And who are the people who move the drugs in the American city neighborhoods? Who moves them? Who gets rich? How many Yankee officials are bought? How many Yankee policemen are bought? If they show them off in the movies they make, the FBI, the DEA, they make their movies and they show off there the way they their agents in the United States are bought off.
And how arrogant that show of force is now at this time when the world is facing a tragedy. Yes, it is a tragedy because well, it is true that the World has faced any number of tragedies and this is one more tragedy, how many times the wars, World Wars, wars in certain areas have caused enormous damage, death to Humanity, and suddenly this epidemic has appeared.
And instead of the Government of the United States taking a constructive attitude, assuming leadership in the United Nations and saying: This is the moment to suspend sanctions, this is the moment to unite efforts to confront this Epidemic that affects us all, the developed countries and the developing countries, the richer countries and the poorer countries, we are all affected by the Epidemic.
They have not done that, what they have done is to throw punches everywhere, and infamies such as offering bounties.
What do they want? A bounty for the assassination of the legitimate President of Venezuela. That is an openly criminal attitude on the part of the United States Government, to be offering that million dollars, for what? To have President Nicolas Maduro and other officials of the legitimate government of Venezuela assassinated.
They are doing it openly, shamelessly, and where is the United Nations? What does the United Nations say? And where are the countries that claim to respect democracy and defend human rights? What culd be a greater violation of human rights? Who has given the US Government the right to go around offering bounties for the assassination of world leaders? That really had not been seen, that I can recall, an instance as brutal as that has not been seen before.
They are well used to committing their crimes, really, offering bounties when there have been situations like the acts of terrorism like the one we condemn, there in Twin Towers. They offered bounties afterwards for bin Laden, the same bin Laden they had trained, they nurtured the terrorist who then blew up the Twin Towers.
We have to unite the peoples to continue defending the Right to Self-Determination, the Sovereignty of of the world's people, and to demand Unity, respecting diversity, that Unity of Nations, respecting diversity in terms of military power, economic power, and countries with small economies, what for? To unite efforts, and that means first of all suspending all the acts of aggression that the United States government is launching, aggressions of all kinds, starting and promoting wars and trade wars.
It is doing so right now with China. The latest one, with the US government announcing that it is going to take sanctions against China; in other words, seeking at the last minute to cover up what came to light with this pandemic. The fact is that this powerful nation, with so many resources, with so much wealth, was left naked, exposing its enormous deficiencies in terms of public health... No beds! No respirators! No masks! They are scrummaging and snatching. At one moment a country bought some masks and the US ran to buy them, offering more money so as to get hold of the masks. It's a thing of mortal madness. The US are the barbarians of the Modern Age. It's an Attila destroying the world.
The US doesn't realize that it's destroying that great nation, destroying that great People. However, we know, nothing is eternal, and surely there will have to be changes in the United States. The ideal would be for the current United States administration to dare to take step up to the plate, to really act with courage and to take a leadership role by respecting all nations and stopping all aggressions. That would really earn respect for the United States of America. Let us hope that they reflect and do so, because that would be the best sign the world could get as it continues facing this pandemic.
We have received a letter from the Network in Defense of Humanity, the Network of Intellectuals, which has been organized for a long time, where they say that in the face of these acts of terror, of terrorism, in the face of the slander campaigns launched against our Peoples: "We not only refute this infertile and petty method, but we also strongly reject baseless disrespectful descriptions and we call for an in-depth debate on ideas that really serve to overcome the threats to Humanity during and after the COVID-19 pandemic".
The message, the letter that has been sent to us, says: "It is our wish to communicate to you, one of the leaders referred to in the libels of the International Freedom Foundation..." They are people of the Right who continually gather and bring out their proclamations hurling brimstone at the world's Peoples, of course, they are instruments of the Empire.
So they say that what is needed here, in any case, is a debate, in the positive sense, to offer an account of the social and ecological holocaust produced by the policies that the signatories of the libels proclaim, embody and publicize.
"To discuss the comparative merits of unbridled selfishness and individualism, as opposed to the ethics of solidarity and the economy of Living Well, for all and by all.
To debate about what would be sustainable modes of production and fair relations of production in the World to come, which will no longer be the same as before".
Of course, it will not be the same as before, because the great failure, the great disaster of the leadership of world capitalism, in the health system, which is the most meaningful, which is the most precious thing for a People, if it is the life of the American People, and there are no beds! American television itself has the stories.
Yes, there are big hospitals, we know, but how much does it cost to go to one of those hospitals? How many Americans can access one of those hospitals? And the health system has been debated in the United States, it has been a subject of profound debate, and this policy privatizing health has been imposed.
And here we have the results: who can go to a private hospital here, and say, go ahead, take care of me? They'll answer, let's see, pay first, or present your credit card. That's what they say in a private hospital here. The patient can arrive there at death's door and there it's not a question of saying: Come in, we'll treat you. There they do not respect the Sacred Principle that the Doctors have, they do not respect it, as a hospital should do. So you simply have to go... where? To the State hospital, to the People's Hospital, and that is why we have made so many investments in the field of health care.
That explains, think about it... that in the middle of this whole situation, where of course we have to address and face this new epidemic... How many epidemics we have not faced!
Well, I was born in La Libertad, Chontales, there in Chontales is my town La Libertad, and when I was born my older siblings had already died, my older sister, Germania, who had died at the age of 4; then a boy was born, he was the second, Siegfried, my father named him, inspired by the novel of the Nibelungs, of the Germans, a hero, Siegfried, and he named him Siegfried. Anyway, Siegfried died, even younger than Germania. There they are in the La Libertad's cemetery, there are the graves of both of them, the boy and the girl.
What did they die of? From these epidemics. They called it at that time, Whistling Cough they called it at that time, children ended up suffocating, unable to breathe, of course, you could hear it like a whistle, a noise there, so then popularly they called it the Whistling Cough. I'm talking about the 1940s. The children, victims, and my parents had no chance of taking them to a health center or a hospital, they just had to make do as best they could...
My father worked in the mining company, he had gone there, he had left Masatepe. My father had been born in Masatepe, in the outskirts of Masatepe, the son of a peasant woman, living in a little straw hut. This campesina had been a cook in my grandfather's house, my grandfather was well to do, he was the director of the Institute of Granada, he was married to a lady from Granada, who was from a well off family. Well, they were married and they hadn't had a child, and suddenly my grandmother appeared with her pregnancy, the cook, and went to have my father there in the masatepe's outskirts, because logically she couldn't continue working there. Then later my father left for La Libertad, looking for work there, where he met my mother and these two children were born there who died from the same kind of epidemic.
And I was telling you that here we have been struggling to find a balance, in what sense? So that we can address the epidemic the same way as all epidemics following the rules laid down by the health authorities, while a vaccine is found. Because that's what happens with epidemics, epidemics hit, and there are no vaccines, because a new epidemic appeared, the last one, before this one, was H1N1, that caused a lot of deaths.
So, well, let's deal with the epidemic while we find treatments, according to the knowledge we already have, the experience we have, what treatment can be applied in order to protect the most vulnerable people, such that this epidemic causes the least number of victims, of deaths. That is what we have done.
It's impossible for people not to have died. It's impossible for people not to get contaminated, why?Because we are connected, the world is interconnected. The epidemic did not originate here, it's true. It was there in a town in China, in Wuhan, but then there is communication, and people come and people travel, both the Nicaraguans who, when this epidemic started, were in the places where it was already beginning to spread, who were in Europe or who were already in the United States, and then traveled here to Nicaragua, so they were already bringing the virus and nobody knew they were bringing the virus, because we were not yet in a state of alert like the one declared later by the WHO, the World Health Organization, which declared the pandemic on March 11.
All this began already in December of last year, it had already begun, you see, but where was the great medical science of the United States? Where were the health authorities of the United States and of the developed countries? Where were they? It just came along, it just came along, and suddenly when they realize there was contamination everywhere, and the developed countries were contaminated, then they took extreme measures.
But people move around in spite of that, here in Central America, for example, the Central American sister countries have prohibited the transit of people between our countries, only the commercial traffic and trucks, passing of course through the controls that they have to pass; but it is very difficult to prevent people from passing via informal routes, around the world, not just here, around the world, everywhere, and then the contamination goes that way too.
And in the midst of this situation, look, we have had 4 people die here and I think that in total, 14 are affected. Extreme measures have been taken in the area of international air traffic, and naturally we must join in this type of measure. That someone coming from another country, comes with the certificate that they took the test there, and does not have the coronavirus. The person comes to Nicaragua and here they are given another brief check-up, because there is talk that sometimes the technology does not work well in the tests and they fail and give the wrong diagnosis. So that's what we propose.
Ah, but there are some countries that want to send us people without those strict conditions...
They send them along, and we already know which country it is and which countries they are. Here they want people to be able to enter, and so we are sending them explanations: Yes they can come, but fulfilling these requirements. The pilots too meeting these requirements, meeting the standards, not ones we are inventing, but ones other countrieshave invented, they have invented them. They have invented them. The measures they have invented are very strict. So, OK, we have the right to defend our population too, to apply the same norms, and we have told them so.
We have been to the meetings where the issue of air transport has been discussed, with the world bodies, and those present here have been there too and you know how the issue has been discussed, and where we are heading in terms of measures to be taken so that there is no more spread of contamination resulting from uncontrolled air traffic, when air traffic is eventually reopened, but taking them now while air traffic has yet to be reopened.
At one point they sent us, before the pandemic was decreed, they sent us about 70 Nicaraguans on a flight, and of course, since there was no pandemic we did not refuse it, although the virus was already active, but we did ask them to give the travelers a check-up, among other things, and in the end they did not do the check-up, they did not do a check-up! In other words, the American authorities did not do any checks and they sent us 70 Nicaraguans from those prisons, detention centers which are in fact prisons.
There is a news report right now, about a Nicaraguan who went there to the US in the 1980s and they received him as a political exile, he is 70-something years old now, and the poor guy is in a wheelchair and can't move, and his wife is desperate to get him out. He was given status as an, and they have him in one of these centers, where they are not checking the people who are in there. It's a concentration camp the Yankees have there. A concentration camp! With nothing to envy Adolf Hitler's concentration camps.
Read the story. It's in an American newspaper. The people are desperate, all of them huddled together, hundreds of immigrants there, and they all feel that they already have the disease and that no one is taking care of them. They are demanding attention, and the authorities themselves say there is no way to take care of them. In other words, these are really dramatic situations where the human rights of the people involved, of the citizens involved, are not being respected in places where they have been placed one on top of the other, in over crowded spaces.
So, consider carefully, I was telling you that here we are engaged in the struggle, abiding by international standards, that is our starting point, but without falling into extreme, radical measures, which would kill the country, kill off the country, kill off people. So, the effort is to maintain normal activities abiding by the norms, and taking special measures for the most vulnerable people.
Here we have for this period: On March 18th the first case was reported, to date 14 people have already been looked after; much more have been cared for, but in 14 people the virus has been found, it has been confirmed, and 162 other people have been followed up, guaranteeing that the virus was not affecting them, that the virus was not present, they had other problems, but they had health symptoms that worried them and they sought attention, to see if they had the virus.
So, in this struggle, 971,443 family households have been visited, with prevention talks being given to 3 million 336,096 citizens, people. This report is from the day before, we have already reached 4 million people with what has been done in the rest of yesterday and today. We have given 18,891 talks on preventive measures in health units. Chlorine fumigation has been carried out in 29 markets, 31 bus terminals, 137 transportation units, 427 schools, and 187 health units.
Consider this more closely, if we tell people to stay home, who is going to fumigate? If we say stay home, which nurse is going to work? Surely, they have the right too, and if you stay home, I stay home too. Which doctor is going to work? Which police officer is going to work? Which soldier is going to work? That's why I tell you, the country would be destroyed, and those who have been insisting on this are the same ones who wanted to destroy the country in April 2018, and who always take advantage of incidents like the fire in Indio Maíz; now they are taking advantage of the epidemic, for what? So as to see the country is destroyed, thinking that if the country is destroyed they will omehow survive.
So then, chlorine has also been distributed, 10,325 pounds of chlorine in homes and health units. I was telling you that from March 11 to April 29, four citizens died. Then we have the houses in which BTI has been applied, which is for dengue. What I mean by this is that we have not stopped continuing the battle against the other epidemics, because if we focus only on the coronavirus and do not attend to the other epidemics, suddenly all the plagues might come raining down on us, and there would indeed be a death toll in the Country; so then we have to attend to the other health menaces as well.
Rat poison in houses to combat rats. Rat urine with leptospirosis kills. You can take a fruit from the ground, on which a rat has urinated... A brother Cuban General I remember was here in the 1990s, he had been here before, he was healthy, we talked together, he returned to Cuba, and there he died. He had picked up some guavas and they had been urinated on by a rat. It was fulminant, lethal leptospirosis!
So, we have to take care of the population from all the evils, from all the plagues that circulate, because diseases circulate everywhere. And that is why we also vaccinate, that is, we should talk about vaccination, we had to do the vaccination. Here we have the data of the vaccination. In a moment, we will give you the data relating to the vaccination campaign.
So we have that in this battle against COVID-19, 21,707 health workers have been directly involved in the actions taken, and 15,952 indirectly, for a total of 37,659 health workers. In other words, the health workers have not gone home. If they went home, not only COVID-19 will rain down on us but all the other ills will begin to multiply, even polio, which we managed to eliminate many years ago, reappears... Yes!
I told you last time that we should not lose sight of the fact that here in Nicaragua, as in the rest of the world, many people are dying of other diseases. During this period, from the moment the Pandemic was announced, the pandemic was formally decreed on March 11, to the present day, April 30, we have 4 deaths from the pandemic, but from all the other problems that affect our country and all countries, we have 2,829 deaths.
Of course, it is understandable that the world has concentrated on keeping track only of those who are dying from the pandemic, and of course we are saddened by a death anywhere in the world. We are in solidarity with the families who are mourning and suffering the death of a family member. Yesterday I saw that 3 people, the father, the mother and the daughter, all 3 died, in the United States.
So, no one is counting the dead from other diseases, the dead from traffic accidents, the dead from drowning, the dead from suicide... No one! That count is not being done, why? Because we are all focused and we ourselves are not talking about how many died in this, we are simply focusing on the daily report, because, of course, right now the main enemy to attack is that virus, but all those other Families are also in pain.
There are deceased by acts of violence, by crime, if ypu look at the 2,829 deaths. There are heart attacks, and we stand in solidarity with those families as well. That is, we stand in solidarity with all the families who have also lost a loved one in this whole period, and at all times.
We cannot allow these families to believe that our heart here is only with someone who dies of the coronavirus. We are with all the families who have a deceased loved one, who died from heart attacks, from diabetes, from kidney problems, that problem of the kidneys that affects so many here in our country, from tumors, cancer, hypertension, when blood pressure has shot up, but with the current high temperatures you have to take care of yourself, because blood pressure can easily shoot up, and with a burst of high blood pressure you can have a stroke, or a heart attack, easily.
Traffic accidents; strokes, as I was saying; homicides, liver failure. Look at the traffic accidents, in this period, from March 11 to April 29, 108 men and 12 women have died. How terrible! How terrible! But we have already become so accustomed to traffic accidents that they no longer move us, do not shock us, and rather become an act of sensationaist news, and attract the curiosity and the worst in people. Of course, there are other people who are sensitive and when they see that news it hurts, but there are others who watch it just because they want to see blood, unfortunately they enjoy that.
Among those who died in traffic accidents were 8 children between the ages of 13 and 21, ; that is, children from 13 to 21 years old, 8 of them.
As for victims of violence, there are homicides, femicides, parricides. There I saw on television today that they had captured the man who murdered a 19-year-old girl, murdered her and threw her down a well... Terrible! Terrible! Terrible! And that's when some will say, because they are such brutal acts you have to apply the death penalty! But we are convinced that these are problems that have cultural roots, social roots, psychological roots, and that as we work more in that field, we will make more progress, there will be fewer crimes of this kind.
Here we see that, of those who have died from criminal actions, there are 85 in total, of which 81 are men and 4 women. According to age, a boy, 13 years old; from 13 to 21 years old, 8, for murder, from acts of violence, who were stabbed, who were shot. Over 21, 76. That's monstrous, a large number of dead people, a great deal of pain in all those families. But of course, we don't see all that for now, because we are all alert to this coronavirus, and it's right to be aware, but we can't be insensitive to the pain that all these other families are suffering.
Imagine, from March 11 to April 29, 37 deaths by drowning. Unfortunate families, who were out for soem recreation, who were out for a leisure activity and, well, a child drowned or an adult drowned. 37 deaths by drowning.
As for suicide, look... 40 deaths by suicide! 40 griefs, 40 wakes, 40 funerals, as a result of suicide. Of these, 35 men committed suicide and 5 women. Of the suicides, from 13 to 21 years old, look, young boys, 9 suicides, in the prime of their youth. From 13 to 21 years old, in full youth, 9 suicides. The pain of those parents, the pain of those families. People aged over 21, 31. Look at that, 40 suicides!
So, we send our condolences to all these Families of the 2,829 Nicaraguan brothers and sisters who have died from different causes during this period. Our condolences, our Solidarity, our Love
During this period also, given that here there was no question of going home, but of giving the battle, keeping the necessary measures sanitary norms demand. Among the services rendered from March 11th to April 29th, and here is some good, wonderful news that makes us happy, in the midst of the death toll, 2,829 dead, plus the 4 of the Coronavirus, 2,833 dead... 14,571 births! Blessed be God! Blessed be to God! 14,571 births. That's 2,833 dead, including the 4 coronavirus cases, but 14,571 born, much more than the deceased. How many times more? 7 times more, the population multiplied, thank God.
Then, in health posts, in hospitals, outpatient consultations, attending to the population, because if not, who will attend to all these people, if doctors and nurses stay at home? Or who will come if the sick person stays at home? To wait to die at home. Consultations in that period, we can see, in these days, 2 million 454,522 Consultations. We must recognize the effort, work, discipline, dedication of the doctors, nurses, cleaning staff, auxiliary staff, emergency room managers, ambulance managers, etc. Look at that, 2 million 454,522!
Emergency consultations, 408,230 Nicaraguans have been attended in emergency consultations; outpatient consultations, 2 million 46,292 Nicaraguans have gone to their outpatient consultations, they have sought outpatient consultations, because they feel bad and they go for whatever problem they have, from a blow they may have got, to major ailments. But if they stay home, will they die? Are we going to tell them to stay home and not go to the hospitals to seek care?
Also in this period children's weight and height have been measured, because this is work that is done to assess children's nutrition, of one million 370,363 children under 6 years old and primary school students in the Country, as part of the Nutritional Census. We have not stopped working! We have not stopped!
Within the national framework of the vaccination campaign, up until April 29th, 1,217,960 doses of vaccines have been and will continue to be applied to protect children, pregnant women and the elderly against 16 diseases. If the diseases are everywhere, and if we concentrate only on COVID-19 then we are attacked by other diseases and they would indeed destroy us. So there's no question of "stay at home".
In the period from March 11th to April 29th, a total of 9,049 pregnant women have been received in the Casas Maternas. Think about that, these women did not stay home, no matter what people may have told them, they did not stay home! They are intelligent women, they know what they are carrying, they carry Life, they are bearing Life and they have to take care of it, so then they go to the Casa Materna to receive attention so that their baby can be born with all the conditions mother and child need.
We see too that a total of 58,003 people were admitted to hospital during these days. There were 57,976 hospital discharges, that is, people are admitted to hospitals, they are given treatment, or else they are operated on, and when they are in good condition, the patient may want to go home immediately; well, they have to wait there until the doctors decide, and then they are discharged.
Comrade, how many days are there from March 11th to April 29th? 49 days, look at everything that has happened in those 49 days: deaths and births, vaccinations, fumigations, medical care in hospitals, operations.
Dialysis... 737 patients attended with dialysis, that is very delicate, and generally they receive 3 dialysis per week, pay attention to that, they get 3 dialysis per week, it is a very delicate work, because in each dialysis applied the person runs the risk of decompensation, because there is a cleaning out of toxins that also takes the benign components, so then there can arise critical situations with the sisters and brothers that depend on dialysis because they have kidney problems.
Chemotherapy has been given to 2,368 patients, why? Because they have cancer. And what then, are they going to stay home? Or the other patients who have kidney problems, are they going to stay home? If they stay home and don't get dialysis, their urea shoots up, and they die, they die at home. So they're lives that have been saved, why? Because with the utmost responsibility to their family and themselves, they have gone to get treament at health posts, health centres, hospitals.
Then too 3,870 health events were held and mobile clinics were mobilized to attend 5,656 communities, imagine that. And then the fumigations, 126,892 homes were fumigated. That's the end of the report.
So, this is a report on the care of Nicaraguan families in the field of health. Here the health system has not sheltered in place, nor have the patients, because they would be dead by now, without their dialysis, without their attention in cases of emergency.
So then, we have had that painful loss of 2,833 Nicaraguan sisters and brothers who have died from different causes, but the miracle of 14,000 births, that is why we say, Blessed be God! And so, dear Nicaraguan sisters and brothers, we have to continue working.
We also express our solidarity today to Brother Nicolas Maduro, and we send him our message with the strength of Tomás, with the spirit of Tomás, that unyielding spirit of Thomas. Because today, remember well, April 30th, is a year since the coup attempt, that was mounted in Venezuela, a plan organized by the Empire committing a number of governments that colluded there, and combining this with local attacks, attempted military attacks by small groups that were infiltrated there. But the coup was defeated.
And we say to our brother Nicolas Maduro that we accompany him in that great battle he is fighting, a battle where the spirit of struggle of the Venezuelan people is being tested, which is the same spirit of struggle of Latin American and Caribbean Peoples, and that we are always together in that noble project that Fidel and Chavez bequeathed us, ALBA, ALBA is always there working, moving forward, in spite of all the aggressions that ALBA has suffered and is suffering.
Dear Nicaraguan sisters and brothers, dear families, good night, and we continue in this struggle for Life, in this struggle for Peace, in this struggle where the principle of Love, that Christian principle of loving your neighbor as you love yourself, that is the principle that must move us, so we continue to move ahead.
And accompanying all this effort of what are the activities of production, of all those who are working and are not waiting, of those who are planting and not holding back, expecting a handout. Because the rich want us to give them money to recover from what they have "lost". Let them take a little bit of money from what they have accumulated, that is what they should do, and invest! After all, it's absurd to ask us for money as if this were a developed country, where they can quietly take 50 billion dollars and put it into bail outs for the rich, not for the poor, for the rich. The little printing press, of course, they start the little printing press they have there.
Be that as it may, we have to continue practicing that principle, to love your neighbor as yourself, that principle that gives us strength, gives us optimism, gives us the assuredness that we will move forward, and that the world will move forward. These are moments they have been lived through also in other times. So now we are going to go to the Mausoleum where Commander Carlos is, Colonel Santos Lopez is, and too Tomás, to deposit an floral homage.
Good evening.