Colombia will allocate more than $78 million for medical care to migrants

The Colombian Government will allocate 326,926 million pesos (about 78.4 million dollars or 70.3 million euros) to public hospitals and private clinics to support them in providing medical care to migrants, the Minister of Health, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo, announced this Monday.

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This investment, which It will be done especially in the centers of the border towns with Venezuelawhere there is a greater population that uses these services, will benefit 659 State Social Enterprises (ESE) and Health Service Provider Institutions (IPS).

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“What we want is to support hospitals that have not been adequately cared for so that they have resources”said Jaramillo in a press conference and added that “all migrants have the right to emergency service”which is where they go when they are not insured.

The 326,926 million pesos will be distributed in 24 of the 32 departments of the country and are intended for “relieve“the debts resulting from the care of uninsured migrants, about 800,000 in total, and to care for those who are insured: 1.5 million.

According to the director of the Resource Administrator of the General Health Social Security System (Adres), Félix León Martínez, Payments will be made starting this Tuesday, October 1.

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Colombia is the country that has received the most migrants from Venezuela in recent years and, according to official data2,876,960 citizens of that nation have settled.

The minister highlighted the case of the San José de Maicao Hospital, in the department of La Guajira (north), bordering Venezuela, which with the initiative will receive 32,220 million pesos (about 7.7 million dollars) for the care of 36,000 people of 450 Wayuu communities, a nomadic indigenous people who live between the two countries and have high rates of child malnutrition.

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Jaramillo emphasized the situation of the towns closest to the Darién Gapon the border with Panama, where epidemiological surveillance strategies are carried out due to the abundant flow of migrants and particularly with indigenous communities.

EFE