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Colombia’s New Health Reform: Keeping the Financial Sector Healthy.

Social movements in the defense of human rights have a long and important history. Since the days of the conquest, human rights have been central to Latin American demands. Looking back, one might even say that the struggle for human rights lies at the core of Latin American history. This makes it essential for us to understand the history of prior social movements that have either assured the fulfillment or human rights or – at least – prevented their violation. With respect to health, Latin America offers a variety of experiences showing how social mobilization can assist in creating health policies and health care systems that guarantee the right to health. This article describes the journey that El Salvador (America’s “Tom Thumb”) began in the late 1990s. A broad coalition of social movements, community groups, unions, and citizens blocked reforms designed to privatize Salvadoran public health services. They also advanced a participative agenda to establish a national health system and promote pro-health social policies. Without question, this experience has much to teach us about the struggle for health rights in Latin America. One key lesson is that social organizations and movements can protect health rights while also promoting initiatives that change policy, systems, and institutions in a way that protects the universal right to health.

The Latin American Medical Association (ALAMES) will be hosting the 11th Congress of Latin American Social Medicine and Collective Health from November 17-21 in Bogota Colombia. This meeting will coincide with the 25th Anniversary of the founding of ALAMES and its theme is the role health in the Latin American political and social agenda. Below we present an abridged version of the planning document for the conference. The complete version is available in Spanish in Medicina Social. More information can also be found on the ALAMES website (www.alames.org) The Editors The 11th Latin American Congress of Social Medicine and Collective Health is both a convocation and a celebration. It’s a convocation to create bold and innovative alternatives to the profound crisis of neoliberal globalization, a crisis that is only beginning. The response to this crisis cannot be limited to the socialization of the losses incurred by the speculators. Now is the moment for proposing and bringing about a true change in global direction.

During the first week of November 2012, the Uruguayan cities of Piriapolis and Montevideo hosted three – joint – Congresses: the XII Latin Ameri-can Congress of Social Medicine and Collective Health, the XVIII International Congress of Health Policy, and VI Congress of the American Network of Local Health Activists (La Red Américas). This combined event brought together some 700 people from 27 countries. The three sponsoring organizations – the Latin American Social Medicine Association (ALAMES), the International Association of Health Policy (IAHP), and La Red Américas – bring together an important part of the critical health movement known as Social Medicine or Collective Health, a movement that is especially active in Europe and Latin America. The meeting brought together a diverse group, which included academics, researchers, students, health system managers, policy makers, and representatives of social movements. What united these groups was a progressive approach to health based on an analysis that took into account society, politics, culture, and environment.

It is common for governments to promise universal health care coverage during electoral campaigns; indeed, it is something that hardly anyone could not aim for. Research can play a major role in the evaluation of health systems. Research thus contributes to the public debate regarding the health and wellness ef-fects of different systems as well as the degree to which different systems realize the universal right to health. Research can be used both by policy makers concerned with achieving effective coverage as well as by social movements interested in fostering public debate and social mobilization to demand governmental enforcement and protection of the universal right to health enshrined in international human rights law.