“You can’t jump into the void”: health guilds

The recent statements of the Minister of Health, Carolina Corkhas revitalized serious concerns among union leaders about the future of the current health system and the financing of the sector by 2023.

Inconveniences and suspicions arose as a result of some statements made by Minister Curcho in the Committee’s Seventh Committee ParliamentWhere he indicated that the total budget of the Ministry of Health suffers from a lack of funding and therefore, reductions will be made on the EPS items. Given the controversy, Curshaw explained at a press conference that his request to the Treasury was to add at least $5 billion to the $8 billion already allocated under the draft budget currently in Congress.

According to the minister, an attempt was made “to distort (her statements) to give the impression that she is looking for a budget cut.”

“We are negotiating a budget with an already projected deficit of $5.7 trillion, which was left by the previous administration as a result of the pandemic (…) A preliminary forecast, which is not the final forecast, was made of $8.1 billion, of which $6.6 billion came from the previous government and 1.5 From us. The demand is approximately $5 billion ($8.1 billion, plus a $5.5 billion deficit and an additional $800 billion), with the aim of complying with the health plan proposed by the government.”

The announcement was added to this fact that the health reform to be introduced in the upcoming legislature does not contemplate the abolition of EPS. So immediately a barrage of criticism fell on the official from various sectors.

In this sense, EL HERALDO consulted experts and health union leaders, who agreed that the substantive discussion that the Minister seeks to provoke is about the sustainability of the Colombian health system.