The Minister of Health, Mónica García, said today during the presentation of the Final Report of the Council on Economic Aspects for All of the WHO, “Health for all”, that “we have to put the economy at the service of health”.
He did so during his speech at the event he attended together with the economist Mariana Mazzucato, economist and president of the Council on Economic Aspects of Health for All of the WHO, and in which this report was presented, which It includes 13 recommendations and is articulated around four fundamental pillars: value, finance, innovate and strengthen the capacity of the public sector to promote the health of all.
Its main objective is to reimagine how the principle of “health for all” can be placed at the center of government decision-making and collaboration with the private sector at the national, regional and international levels.
The more health, the more economy
The Minister of Health highlighted during her speech that this Report has highlighted something fundamental “that we have defended for a long time: That we must defend health as the backbone of our society”. García has pointed out that the public refers to “the citizen, it is everyone’s thing, what defends the common good and has to be the basis of all health and economic policies.”
Referring to past times, he recalled that there was a time when GDP, the risk premium, and public debt mattered more and “they forgot about health, because we put health at the service of the economy.” For García, during that time when others governed, “they stopped giving oxygen to innovation, research and the training of professionals. “They left out the vulnerable and put the sustainability of the entire health system at risk.”
That’s why the key is “put the economy at the service of health, of people“, García said, because “the more health, the more economy”García concluded.
The report
Along the same lines, the economist Mazzacuto has said that when preparing the report, precisely what we wanted to achieve is that if the objective is health for all, we must take into account the impact that this has on the system. economically, from the local, regional, national, international and global point of view. “We must direct our efforts to seek the universality of healthcare“, said Mazzacuto.
The model must be based on collaboration, Mazzacuto said, so that access to healthcare is a core thing. The public must fix the problems generated by the private sector, the market and the economy must be shaped to ensure that the voices of citizens are on the table,” said Mazzacuto. “We must invest in health for all and create an effective health system to achieve it; These ideas must be at the center of all budgets and health policies“, it is finished.
During the pandemic, he recalled, “we realized things such as that we live in society and work together in health, in that case to fight a pandemic that did not understand social classes.” We realized, Mazzacuto continued, that “we did not have adequate tools against a pandemic. “We would have needed to invest more in health systems and technologies.”
However, he indicated, “we obtained good results,”for example in terms of vaccines, but what we wanted was to vaccinate everyone and that was not achieved”.
Collaboration model
Minister García has also mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that we must remember that although the pandemic was a shock, “We learned that we need to take care of everyone’s health and so that everyone is safe and we must understand that our health should not only be on the backs of the health workers, or the vulnerable, because in times of pandemic, we were all vulnerable,” he stressed.
Public health, García recalled, is that science that deals with the health of the population and for many years has been reviled, but “we need all agents to collaborate and of course take into account the importance of the social determinants of health,” he said. “How does it impact access to housing, social inequalities, sexist violence, climate change… all those factors that influence our health and that need everyone’s collaboration to change the course of the current model”García said.
“And health is a fundamental right and we must reorient the economy to guarantee the health of all,” said García. “This is the key to the WHO report, which is going to be our roadmapwhich will give us the impetus we need to carry out our objective, that health is respected as a fundamental right,” said the minister.
Ministry measures
Next, the minister went on to list the measures that her Ministry is already carrying out, referring to the four basic points of the WHO Report, “Health for all”. Regarding valuing health, the Bill has been approved to consolidate the cohesion and quality of the National Health System. A text that incorporates health impact evaluation in all policies. In these first months, the ministry has also strengthened the role of the Health and Climate Change Observatory because, the minister insisted: “we know that the climate crisis is, above all, a public health crisis,” the minister said.
Regarding the point of financing, the minister has indicated that financing packages have been approved to modernize health infrastructure and technologies to guarantee equitable access to quality services for the entire population. Also ““We have expanded the coverage of essential services, such as mental health, primary care, rare diseases or oral and visual health”has said.
On the point of innovating, García explained that he is developing a new strategy for the Pharmaceutical Industry that prioritizes the health needs of the population, promoting research and development of medicines. “With this Strategy, Mónica García stressed, “what we seek is to put our country’s biomedical innovation at the service of the health needs of the population, such as antimicrobial resistance, rare diseases or chronicity. Furthermore, we want to create structures that allow all the actors involved in the innovation, development and transfer of these technologies to come together to unite the pharmaceutical ecosystem in Spain.”
Finally, and in terms of strengthening the capacity of the public sector to promote health for all, the minister has highlighted the approval of the Royal Decree that creates the State Public Health Surveillance Network which, together with the creation of The State Public Health Agency, “will allow us to strengthen the State structures that analyze the public health of the Spanish population, that guide the policies that aim to improve it and that coordinate the response to its possible threats.”
For her part, the renowned economist Mariana Mazzucato wanted to thank the minister for: “put the focus on the entrepreneurial state” and has insisted that “these ideas of health for all have to be in the European recovery fund.”.”
He also recalled the need for: “The voices of citizens to be on the table. If we want to be focused on results, we must take into account the people who have experienced care. Women can help design that policy because they understand how it works. “It is necessary that the people to whom the aid is directed be part of the process.”
Finally, the minister recalled that “Improving healthcare was never an expense, it always has been and should be an investment”.
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