Looking at an increase of life expectancy of between 5% and 7%, with an eventual 11% on the horizon by 2030, the Dominican Social Security Institute is under pressure to institute the Primary Care System of Health. This was the position of Gustavo Güilamo, the Social Security Coordinator at the Ministry of Labor, set forth during the first international seminar on the issue of Primary Care. The event was held by INTEC’s Social Security Observatory, and the former Health Minister from Colombia, Alejandro Gaviria and the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) health specialist Ricardo Perez Cuevas offered their perspectives on a primary care system.
Gaviria Uribe, an economist who directs the Center for the Sustainable Development Objectives for Latin American and the Caribbean, said that the countries in the area needed to work together in order to regulated fair pricing for medicines and other health related products. For his part, Perez Cuevas presented primary care experiences in several countries in the region including Mexico, El Salvador, Panama and Brazil. A survey by the IDB showed that between 82% and 90% of those surveyed felt that their health care system needed work.
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Diario Libre
25 February 2019