An estimated 57,000 Colombians took to the streets on Saturday to protest against controversial reforms ordered by the government to prevent the country's health care system from collapsing.
According to the different local authorities, there were no incidents during the marches that lasted from 10AM until 1PM.
The protesters opposed the government's declaration of social emergency, which allowed it to pass a number of decrees Bogota thinks necessary to save the health care system.
The most controversial points in the reform decrees, issued over the last few weeks, are concerned with the evaluation of patients’ ability to pay for treatments not included in the Obligatory Health Plan, or POS, and the fact that they will have to use their savings or retirement benefits to cover them.
Also criticized are the economic sanctions and even dismissal of doctors who prescribe expensive medicines or recommend treatments not included in the POS.
According to medical associations, this “straitjacket” is a violation of professionals’ autonomy and the very practice of medicine.
The demonstrators consider that the decrees violate acquired rights and cut back medical and hospital care.
President Alvaro Uribe, in response to the protests, said that some of the decrees were wrongly formulated and understood, and that the decrees would be rephrased.
gringomedellin
said:
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... they only reason a Docotr would prescribe a named drug over a gentic one is they are getting kick backsand the medical associations are trying to prtect those kick backs . also how about a story into what all the new decrees where, I haven't seen anything other then the one about drugs. |
bob
said:
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... What HEALTH CARE ? Have you ever been in a PUBLIC hospital ? I went with my wife to visit a friend who was hospitalized and I was HORRIFIED at the lack of EQUIPMENT. It was like a throwback to the 1950´s. Honestly, and I am not being sarcastic here, the VETERINARIAN clinic we use in the United States for our dog has better medical equipment than the public hospitals in Colombia. Now to the PRESCRIPTIONS. I experienced this 1st hand. We are in the COOMEVA system and when I was seriously ill, the Doctor kept sending my wife to the pharmacy to buy the medications I needed because COOMEVA didn´t cover it. Had we not had the money to buy the medications I needed, I would have died (Literally). So the Govt can say Colombia is now ¨Officially¨ in a public health emergency, but in reality, the health care system in Colombia has been Dead On Arrival for quite a long time. |
