“Great work had been achieved with the Eye Hospital, 100,000 surgeries were reached, 65% for cataracts and the rest for other pathologies. Now work is slowing down, eye health has been commodified again, ”said the former Undersecretary of Public Health, Dr. Miguel Fernández Galeano, to EL ECO.
When the Hospial de Ojos began, private healthcare also began to carry out interventions free of charge. As the Eye Hospital has been partially dismantled, private health interventions are now being carried out at a cost of between 1,000 and 1,500 dollars per eye. “It is an agenda change that does not see health as a human right, a public good.”
“The State has to guarantee health care, it is one of its responsibilities. The population has a duty to take care of itself, but we must not throw all the responsibilities at it,” said the former undersecretary of the Ministry of Public Health.
