“Here we are going to build on what has been built” and “we are going to take the best that the health system has,” said the Minister of the sector, Carolina Corcho, on Monday in statements to ‘Colombia Hoy Radio’, the news program of the Presidency of the Republic.
The Minister referred to the issue on the occasion of the filing this Monday in the Congress of the Republic of the bill ‘Change towards health for life’.
According to the Ministry of Health, the reform includes –among other aspects– the promotion of the health prevention model, the dignity of workers in the sector, the strengthening of public hospitals and the recovery of the public administration of resources, so that the health system in Colombia is efficient, agile, equitable and sustainable in its finances.
In this sense, the head of the Health portfolio stressed that at all times the Government will maintain the financing of high-cost treatments and that the project guarantees the provision of these services.
Carolina Corcho drew attention to the importance of health personnel in society, for which the bill seeks that workers in this sector have optimal working conditions and legal benefits, such as bonuses and layoffs.
“The majority of health workers in Colombia are under the form of labor exploitation, outsourcing, labor intermediation. This bill calls for creating a special labor regime, ”he said.
On the other hand, the Minister of Health referred to an important aspect of the project, related to the search for equity and the closing of social, economic and regional gaps.
“There we have some difficulties,” he said and considered that our health system is “very inequitable”, because, although “there is an important offer of services and we are making a lot of progress in that”, that “offer of services occurs, above all, in the big cities”.
In this regard, he cited the case of Bogotá, where the benefit “is concentrated in the north and east of the city, but not in the south of the city.”
He pointed out that if one looks at the situation of the entire national territory, “almost in more than half of the country, in the dispersed, rural area, in the popular neighborhoods, there is very little supply of health services.”
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reassurance message
In her statements to ‘Colombia Hoy Radio’, Minister Corcho sent a message of calm to the public and the private sector.
In this sense, he reiterated: “Here the capacities of the private sector are going to be required in the provision of health services, in their clinics, in their hospitals. What happens is that, even, the conditions of the private sector must improve, but they are going to be paid directly so that they can improve their health care”.
According to the head of the portfolio, “the changes in health systems are normal and do not have to affect the provision of services.”
He pointed out that “they are gradual changes” and that the bill establishes a “transition period to gradually make the changes, in such a way that Colombians are not affected.”
Open dialogue and collective construction
It should be noted that the bill contains the articles and the statement of reasons that support this process of transformation of the health system in Colombia, and that it has been the result of consensus among various social organizations, unions, and health unions.
The initiative has been presented, debated, and consulted in 9 regional hearings, 12 thematic tables, 35 dialogues for health, an Agreement for Prosperity in Health, and multiple meetings with system actors.
The legislative debate on the bill will begin, after its filing, in the seventh committees of the House and Senate.
In turn, the Ministry of Health has invited citizens and medical, academic, social, administrative, and professional associations to participate in public hearings and regional dialogues, forums, and other open activities designed to dialogue and build collectively an inclusive health model that listens, evolves and provides timely responses always oriented towards the care of life.