Translate page with Google

Pulitzer Center Update February 20, 2020

Pulitzer Fellow Patrick Ammerman Interviewed on Covering Venezuelan Migration in Penn Today

Media: Authors:
A Venezuelan family waits outside a Red Cross center in Norte de Santander. Image by Patrick Ammerman. Colombia, 2019.
English

As Venezuelans leave their country by the millions, how is Colombia—a country with its own recent...

A Venezuelan family waits outside a Red Cross center in Norte de Santander. Image by Patrick Ammerman. Colombia, 2019.
A Venezuelan family waits outside a Red Cross center in Norte de Santander. Image by Patrick Ammerman. Colombia, 2019.

Penn Today, a University of Pennsylvania news site, featured 2019 Pulitzer Reporting Fellow Patrick Ammerman discussing his experience reporting on migration across the Venezuela-Colombia border.

Ammerman, a second-year student in the Master of Social Work Program, was interviewed about how Venezuelans have a lack of access to HIV/AIDS medications due to factors including corruption, medical shortages, and economic pressures, forcing patients to journey to Colombia.

“I never stopped being shocked,” Ammerman said of the stories he heard on the Colombia-Venezuela border in the interview.

According to Ammerman, regions beyond the border experience even further hardships. In Cali, Colombia, “There were so many Venezuelans living there and very few needs organizations because they’re so far from the border, and the conditions I saw there were really appalling,” he said. In his reporting, Ammerman found that while Venezuelans can find treatment for HIV/AIDS in Colombia, there are often barriers to care—because cancer, HIV, and other chronic health conditions are not considered emergencies in Colombian hospitals—HIV patients require special permits to receive treatment.

Ammerman's work has appeared in Foreign Policy and on the Pulitzer Center website.

To read the full story, please visit the Penn Today website.

RELATED TOPICS

teal halftone illustration of a family carrying luggage and walking

Topic

Migration and Refugees

Migration and Refugees
navy halftone illustration of a group of pharmaceutical pills

Topic

Outbreaks and Epidemics

Outbreaks and Epidemics

RELATED CONTENT