The interim executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Mario Cimoli, said Wednesday that the body is working to ensure that the countries in the region guarantee access to health systems for the benefit of development and equality.
During the international seminar “International learning and teaching for the transition to universal, comprehensive and sustainable health systems”, the director of the regional organization emphasized “You cannot grow with high productivity, global competitiveness and social inclusion if the population does not have access to quality health care Has .”
“This is what we mean when we talk about the inefficiency of inequality,” said Cimoli, who also stressed that it is essential that states devote ample resources that can fund universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient systems.
With a commitment to ensure and strengthen primary health care, various personalities presented criteria related to these guidelines at the meeting in Santiago, Chile.
Chilean Health Minister María Begoña Yarza stated that we cannot talk about development if we don’t talk about health, explaining that in the Chilean context, health depends on people’s ability to pay, which is one of the main objectives of challenges The ongoing reform seeks to address the end existing structural injustice and move to a universal health system.
For her part, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) director Carissa F. Etienne noted that “the data is unequivocal: The Americas region reports the highest number of Covid-19 cases and the highest number of deaths . Our public health infrastructure was unprepared and our health systems were fragmented, segmented and underfunded.”
In this regard, the official pointed out that “the time has come for a fundamental transformation of our healthcare systems, a transformation that must be guided by a comprehensive analysis of how those systems have been performing during the pandemic and based on the principle that everyone in this region has the right to health”.
ECLAC figures show that public health spending in Latin America and the Caribbean is equivalent to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a far cry from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation of 6 percent of GDP.
“In the same way, household out-of-pocket expenditure accounts for 32.2 per cent of total health spending in the Region (compared to 21 per cent in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – OECD) countries, affecting a third of countries are Latin America and the Caribbean with a share of self-spending of more than 40 percent of the total, exposing the population to critical situations of financial vulnerability, especially given the sum of the crises affecting the region (economic, health and social),” highlighted one of notice issued by ECLAC.