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Salvadorans Oppose Health Privatization
El
Salvador's unions confirmed their rejection of
possible privatization of public health services
on Friday, which they will express publicly in
the "Marcha Blanca" demonstration today.
The government submitted a bill last year to the
Legislature to reform the National Health System
(SNS) that, opponents claim, leaves the door
open to private enterprises, particularly in
research, and will result in the fragmentation
of medical attention and coverage.
The bill and its eventual approval, they say,
will have the same effect in the country, as
occurred when ex President Francisco Flores
(1999-2004) tried to open assistance services to
private capital.
At that time, popular and union rejection,
expressed in the most numerous and prolonged
protests in El Salvador's history, were so
strong that the idea was squashed.
Salvador's Permanent Table on Human Right to
Health asserts that the current government
proposal does not establish the public health
character of the SNS, nor that the State is
responsible for providing health, as a human
right.
Unions and social and political organizations,
including the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front), will march Saturday to the
areas of public hospitals to demand the bill be
voted down.
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