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Health reform in El Salvador: a lost opportunity for reducing health inequity and social exclusion?

¹ Observatorio de Políticas Públicas y Salud- OPPS/CENSALUD, Universidad de El Salvador, San Salvador, El Salvador
² Radboud University Nijmegen, UMCN, Institute for International Health, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Correspondence to:
Dr Eduardo Espinoza, Final 25 Av Norte y Boulevard de Los Héroes, Ciudad Universitaria, Universidad de El Salvador, San Salvador, El Salvador; eduardo@espinoza.ca

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Since the 1993 World Bank Report, health reforms based on market criteria and cost effectiveness studies have become popular.¹ The models from Chile and Colombia, with their respective variations, were introduced as social experiments. Both failed and did not contribute to improved health or health equity.² On the contrary, these neoliberal innovations appear to have widened existing health inequity according to critical reviews by institutions such as the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).³

The human development reports (UNDP) have identified Guatemala, Brazil and El Salvador as the most inequitable countries within the planet’s most inequitable subcontinent (Latin America). In El Salvador, the post-conflict context is causing a high incidence of violence and homicides that mainly affects young people. A national health system (SNS) is one of the few mechanisms to be established in a state that has been greatly weakened by structural adjustment programmes.^{4 5} However, more than 10 reform proposals . . . [Full text of this article]

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