UN: Bolivia’s Universal Healthcare Is ‘Model for the World’

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN, UNITED NATIONS, HEALTH, 27 May 2019

teleSUR – TRANSCEND Media Service

The World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out that Bolivia’s leftist government has given generous funding and resources to health, ensuring free treatment for all.

Evo Morales greets supporters in Chuquisaca on Wednesday. | Photo: ABI

23 May 2019 – The U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO) praised Bolivia’s newly implemented universal health care system, known in the country as the Single Health System (SUS). The WHO pointed out that Bolivia’s leftist government has given generous funding and resources to health, ensuring free treatment for all.

Alfonso Tenorio, a representative of the WHO and the Pan American Health Organization, spoke Wednesday in Geneva, in praise of Bolivia’s health system and the country’s health minister Gabriela Montaño.

Tenorio spoke afterwards with state radio company Red Patria Nueva, saying: “Bolivia has become an important model for the world … the minister is always taking advantage of the strength of others and the exchange of knowledge to strengthen the SUS.”

The day before, Carina Vance, UNASUR representative, also praised Bolivia’s leftist government, saying that they have “deepened the right to healthcare.”

RELATED: Bolivia’s Housing Program Benefitted 150,000 Since 2006

The SUS was officially formed on March 1, 2019, ensuring that millions of previously uninsured Bolivians now have access to free treatment. In the first 20 days of the system being launched, it was announced that over 30,000 had already received free treatment. The SUS has also initiated vaccination campaigns across the country, in one such campaign, over 80,000 were inoculated in just one week, in the department of Cochabamba. Experts have argued that such social programs are possible thanks to the nationalization of much of the country’s natural resources in 2006.

Other leftist governments in the region have also achieved significant results in health. On Tuesday, the Sandinista government in Nicaragua announced a 40% drop in infant mortality in the first few months of 2019.

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