According to the different sectors, it is urgent to address the main problems of the health system in the country.
After the archive of the health reform In the Seventh Commission of the Senate of the Republic, different actors in the system agreed that, beyond the political setback, the sector crisis continues to deepen and they demand urgent responses from the national government to protect patients and guarantee the provision of health services to Colombians.
The director of the Colombian Association of Hospitals and Clinics (ACHC)Juan Carlos Giraldo, stated that the collapse of the project revives a paradoxical situation that has been repeated in the country: there is a general consensus on the need for a reform, but no agreement on how to implement it.
“All sectors consider that a reform must be carried out, but it has not been possible to agree on the way to carry it out,” he noted.
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Expectation for the appeal process
Giraldo explained that the union will remain expectant regarding the decision adopted by the plenary session of Congress about an eventual appeal, which could allow the debate to continue in another commission, as happened with the labor reform. However, he stressed that, regardless of this outcome, the country cannot continue postponing a serious and responsible analysis of a structural reform of the health system.
“The Government, in the immediate term, has to make decisions to help manage a situation that is becoming more difficult every day, especially for the provision of services,” he warned.
Patients are the most affected
The manager was emphatic in pointing out that the crisis already has a direct impact on the patients. “There is a lack of medicines, timely payments are not made, the portfolio continues to grow and there are a number of problems that are evident today,” he stated. Although he recognized that the archive of the health reform is a political fact, he insisted that the operational difficulties of the system require immediate interventionssome of a legislative nature and many others administrative.
Financing of the health system
A similar position expressed Ana Maria Vesgadirector of the Colombian Association of Comprehensive Medicine Companies (Acemi)union of the EPS of the contributory regime, who reiterated that the problems of the system cannot continue to be postponed. Vesga highlighted that one of the most urgent decisions is the one related to the financingin particular the fixation of the Capitation Payment Unit (UPC) by 2026.
“That is, without a doubt, the necessary signal to begin the stabilization of the sector next year, in a system that the Government refuses to accept is in crisis,” he stated. According to the union leader, as long as this refusal persists, thousands of patients and their families face daily more barriers and greater difficulties to access health services.
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It did not solve the problems of the health system
From the users’ perspective, Denis Silvaspokesperson for Colombia Patientsmaintained that the Government did not have the necessary resources to implement the shelved reform and that it did not resolve the structural problems of the system. “While the minister spends himself disqualifying all the actors in the system, he should be thinking about stopping the humanitarian crisis that is generating death,” he stated.
Silva called for convening a large table with all the actors in the sector and to present a new reform that will allow the country to get out of what he described as a “dreadful crisis.” Although he celebrated the archiving of the project, he regretted that Colombia is moving towards greater polarization and fewer effective responses. “Health is a fundamental rightnot a favor,” he concluded.
The voices of unions and patients agree on a central point when pointing out that “the debate on the reform cannot continue to be disconnected from the urgent decisions that the system requires” to prevent the crisis from continuing to worsen and affecting millions of Colombians more and more every day.
Source: Integrated Information System
