Senate reopens health reform advisory panel, criticizes Aguilera’s absence

So far, neither this commitment nor the progress highlighted by the ministry – not paying at all for the institutional modality of FONAS and implementing a pilot plan to generalize primary health care in the country’s various municipalities – have been enough to calm concerns. This is becoming a parade in Congress, to the point that a few weeks ago the chairman of the committee, Senator Javier Macaya (UDI)accompanied by his wife, Juan Luis Castro (PS), It was announced that this expert committee had been reconstituted to address the reform.

The session introduced five government experts: Cristian Baeza, Executive Director of the Center for Health Development in the United States; Fernando Arauz, former Undersecretary for Assistance Networks; Álvaro Erazo, former Minister of Health; Marco Antonio Núñez, former MP for the Popular Democratic Party, and Lorena Rodríguez, Director of the School of Public Health at the University of Chile. And five specialists selected by the opposition senators: Emilio Santelis, former Minister of Health; Paula Daza, former Undersecretary of Public Health; Carolina Velasco, Director of Studies at IPSUSS at the University of San Sebastián; Ricardo Bitran, health economist, and Álvaro Clark, Director of the Center for Corporate Governance at Casa de Bello.

The absence of the Ministry of Health from this first meeting caused everyone to be upset. The Secretary of the Authority began the meeting by announcing that the Head of the Health Ministry, Ximena Aguilera did not attend the meeting due to “conflicting previously scheduled meetings.”

After being notified of Aguilera’s absence, Senator Macaya expressed his annoyance: “I cannot help but mention the excuse given by the Minister of Health for this first session.. It seems to me that this is bad news, because this is not an effort that requires only Parliament, but there are many things that are the exclusive initiative of the executive branch. We should take advantage of this opportunity and hope they will look at it that way too.

Later, UDI senator Sergio Jahona also agreed that “the ministry has dozens of powers, so it is not understandable that it cannot send a representative.”And one is left with the question of whether the government really wants to implement a good health reform that will help solve the problems facing the system and affecting the people.

“Beyond today’s circumstances, the government has committed itself to a path that goes through two moments: before October 1, it must send a project that eliminates pre-existing conditions and then it must send other projects, related to the Universal Health Fund, to the cost of medical licenses and to the governance of the Health Supervision Authority (…), What cannot happen is that the executive branch does not adhere to this flight path.“Senator Castro added.

This is the third commission set up by the Senate Health Committee, having already set up a commission to address the Isapris crisis and another for reform. As in previous editions, the experts will have to prepare a series of recommendations, which will not be binding on the projects presented by the government in October.

When consulted by La Tercera, the ministry repeated the words that Minister Aguilera had said a few days earlier on CNN: “As an executive, it seems good to us that the Senate wants an advisory council. We are working with our reform committee, and we will carry out a participatory process, as the parliamentarians have asked us to do, to discuss these different elements and the proposals that exist specifically to meet those needs. We will take the recommendations of this advisory council, and we will also take the opinions of the different people or actors who have asked us to be part of the discussion.