Buenaventura residents criticise state neglect after Colombia’s earthquake

Chronic under-investmentIn Buenaventura alone, some 540 homes have collapsed and 3,416 sustained damage. Some 330 residents were injured.But at the Luis Ablanque de la Plata District Hospital, several wards have been out of operation following the earthquake.The injured lie by the dozens in beds under tents outside in the hospital’s sweltering car park, waiting to be treated for a range of breaks and tears sustained in the disaster.Bryan Reyes, 29, sustained three fractures in his leg after jumping out of a first-floor window to escape the earthquake.A shipyard worker who carries cargo for a living, he called the earthquake response evidence of Buenaventura's long history of institutional neglect."It is a total abandonment. It’s like the people here just don’t matter," he said.Reyes pointed to the lack of resources at the hospital. The limited supplies, he explained, are a symptom of chronic under-investment."Before the earthquake struck, there was a strike at the hospital because the workers hadn’t been paid," Reyes said. "There are never any supplies; they don't pay the doctors or specialists."Bryan Reyes sits at the edge of his hospital bed in a temporary medical tent outside Lu...