José Luis Parra, a 30-year-old Venezuelan, had not mourned the loss of his two-month-old daughter Dana for a week when he read the news that shook him: a baby as young as his had died of an infection with the same respiratory virus. who attacked Dana while she was waiting in a collapsed hospital waiting to be transferred to a center that had a pediatric intensive care unit bed. The tragedy happened in the Valparaíso region of Chile, the country where Parra has been living with his wife and son for three months. The case was so similar to what had happened to them that they dismissed the idea that waiting 12 hours to transfer them to another facility was normal. At 12 p.m., when everything was finally ready for transport, the baby failed to survive a second cardiac arrest and died at the Quilpué municipal hospital.
“Nothing will give us back our daughter,” laments Parra, a strong man albeit weakened, “but we want his story to be used so that there are more beds and not other children dying,” he adds this Thursday in his added living room after returning from the site where he works, which is two hours away by public transport. “I didn’t know at first it was negligence, I didn’t know about this virus [sincitial], he thought his small body couldn’t take it. Now I think it could have been saved,” adds Yessenia Sánchez, 35, José Luis’ wife, while playing with Martín, their four-year-old son. The only decoration in the humble house are the drawings of the little boy who, since the death of his sister, has insisted on painting the four members of the family.
Martín, Dana Parra’s brother, plays with a tablet next to the drawings he made for his sister Cristobal Venegas
Dana’s case is one of four infant deaths from respiratory viruses reported in the first week of June. It’s already six. Criticism of the handling of one of the largest respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) outbreaks recorded in Chile in recent years led to the resignation this week of Fernando Araos, who served as undersecretary of Assistance Networks, the health ministry’s oversight department, under other things, the availability of critical beds. As of this Monday, there is one exclusive person responsible for completing this task. President Gabriel Boric reported that the number of cots in the integrated system (public and private) increased by 58.9% compared to the base.
After Dana’s death, her parents look askance at the decision they made three months ago. Originally from a popular neighborhood in the city of Valencia (in the north of the country) and the first university generation of their families, the couple decided to leave their country in 2017 when food shortages hit them hard. Yessenia, who had given her mother a gold ring for every school degree she achieved (primary, high school and university), was forced to sell all the jewels to raise money for a ticket to Peru. Orphaned since he was 14, José Luis stayed a few months to accompany his grandmother, his second mother. By the end of the year, they were already reunited in Lima and decided to have a baby. “I was already 30 years old, we had been together for seven years, I didn’t want to wait any longer, but it was a very tough year,” she admits.
José Luis took to the streets to sell arepas, empanadas and coffee. The good education he received is reflected in how he describes those days: “His heels were cracked from walking so much. The sun there looks like a vine has been thrown at it and pulled towards you. abominable. Visibility was blurred on the road that seemed to tremble and disappear. After their papers were legalized, both found good jobs. Yessenia resigned when Martín was born, while José Luis’ soft skills paid off. He worked in a telecommunications company, where he had to attract customers. While his colleagues got straight to the point, he spent a lot of time chatting with potential buyers about how the work was going or whether they liked animals when he heard them bark. They always said yes at the end of the conversation.
José Luis Parra and Yessenia Sánchez tell what happened. Cristóbal Venegas
It grew so quickly that the $300-per-month commissions — on top of his fixed fee — became weekly. “But then they changed the rules and started belittling me even for my breathing,” he recalls. Angered, he stepped back. The couple set up a street stall selling mobile products. In 2022, Yessenia became pregnant again. “I wanted my daughter in Chile because I knew it was better there. Although things went well for me when Martín was born in the hospital, that wasn’t the case for many of my friends,” explains the social communicator. In the groups of Venezuelans in Chile on Facebook, they read that it is no longer easy to get a visa, but the salaries are still better than in Peru, a country where they never felt they belonged.
Yessenia’s sister, who lives in Quilpué, warned that Martín would be granted a residence permit because he was a minor, the baby would have Chilean nationality, but the two would be irregular. “The most important thing was the children,” he says. So they went to the border of the Peruvian city of Tacna to get to Arica, Chile, without papers. She was eight months pregnant. They told Martín that they were going on an adventure that would involve a lot of walking. In two weeks they tried four times. The military was infallible, they emphasize. Neither crying nor organized sneaking strategies were successful. They finally did it by spending a few hundred dollars.
They rented a room with a living room, kitchen and bathroom in a house in Quilpué. There arrived Dana, who shared the bedroom with her parents and Martín. He was born at 36 weeks and has always had a runny nose. One day it got worse and he was diagnosed with rhinopharyngitis. As the improvement did not improve, Yessenia took her to the hospital, where mucus was found in her lungs. It was a Wednesday when she was admitted to the hospital. At 2 a.m. on Friday, she was never the same. She did not cry uncontrollably when her nostrils were uncovered, or cough violently. He didn’t want to breastfeed either. At eight in the morning that day, the doctors said they would transfer her. But after that, 12 hours passed, and the baby faded throughout the day. In between, some paramedics came to intubate her and picked her up at 4:00 p.m., but the bed they found for her was an ICU, not an ICU, so they left without her.
The loss of Dana has hit Martin. The child attends a school that satisfies his parents; They sent him to a psychologist. He is much more restless than before and keeps talking about his Chilean sister – as he makes clear in the interview. A few days ago he hid in the only piece of furniture in the living room. The parents listened as he performed a magic trick to bring Dana back.
The neighbors of the baby’s parents raised a donation that enabled them to pay $440 for the baby’s burial in the San Carlos Borromeo Parish Cemetery. The other parents who lost their children to the virus buried them in grassy cemeteries. That’s what Yessenia and José Luis wanted, but it cost $1,200, which they didn’t have. No authority came to Dana’s funeral.
The drawings that Martín made for his sister Cristobal Venegas
Several parliamentarians of different political persuasions have approached her. The Venezuelan couple argue that the only one who really did anything concrete for them was center-right independent Hotuiti Teao, who organized a press office for them and urged them to attend Congress this week to meet with the health minister to apply .,Ximena Aguilera, which happened on Wednesday, along with the other parents who lost their babies.
Paralleling the politicians’ demanding demand – “You call us, let us tell the whole story, and then you go” – a lawyer offered to represent her in a “presumed manslaughter” court case against hospital officials and others responsible. The agreement is that they only pay if they win the case and are compensated. Secretary Aguilera assured them in Congress that the investigation should be completed in two weeks and that they would be given access to this information.
This Thursday, a representative from the Ministry of Health called to get the details agreed with the minister. Yessenia informed him that she did not make this request, but that is exactly what they wanted: to speed up the procedures for obtaining a residence permit in Chile. In the emotional rollercoaster the couple is going through, they’ve regretted leaving Peru, thought about returning to Venezuela and even talked about pursuing life in the United States or Canada. But they always come to the same conclusion: “We can’t leave Dana here alone.”