Reply #32: Information from PAHO's Report on Chile

[Say_What]

A little research goes a long way. It might interest you to know that Chile provided healthcare for all of its citizens under the unified public health care system of 1952. The US-supported Pinochet regime did away with this when they took power.

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GENERAL SITUATION AND TRENDS
Chile is a unitary State with a democratic government.. The country is divided into 13 political-administrative regions. The estimated population in June 2001 was 15.4 million. The most densely populated area is the Santiago metropolitan region. The country has eight indigenous groups that make up 10% of the total population: Aymará, Atacameño, Quichua, Mapuche, Rapa Nui , Colla, Kaueskar, and Yámana. The reform of the health sector is one of the seven major changes proposed for the 2000-2006 period. The purpose of the reform is to guarantee the right to health for all Chileans, without discrimination; improve their levels of health; and reduce inequities owing to the socioeconomic status and geographical location.

.....SPECIFIC HEALTH PROBLEMS
Analysis by population group
Children (0-4 years): In 1999, the infant mortality rate was 10.1 per 1,000 live births. There was a drop in early neonatal, neonatal, and postneonatal mortality. The leading causes of death were perinatal disorders, congenital anomalies, respiratory diseases, and injuries and poisonings. There were 461 deaths among children aged 1-4 in 1999, or 0.5% of the total, for a rate of 0.4 per 1,000 population. The leading cause of death was external causes, accounting for 33.4% of all deaths.

Schoolchildren (5-9 years): The 5-9 years age group accounted for 0.3% of total deaths, making it the group with the lowest age-specific mortality rate (0.20 per 1,000 population). Deaths reported in 1999 were mainly due to external causes (39%).

Adolescents (10-14 and 15-19 years): The mortality rate among adolescents between 10 and 19 years was 0.37 per 1,000 population. Injuries and neoplasms were the leading cause of death, 18% of the total. Analysis for specific rather than broad causes showed the first nine to be external causes, with suicide by hanging in fourth place for 56 deaths; 41 were young men.

The elderly (60-years and older): The mortality rate in the 65-79 years age group was 31.5 per 1,000 population. Neoplasms was the leading cause of death, followed by diseases of the circulatory system and diseases of the respiratory system.

http://www.paho.org/english/dd/ais/cp_152.htm

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General information on Michelle Bachelet

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Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (born September 29, 1951) is the current President of Chile, the first woman to hold this position in the country's history. She won the 2006 election in a runoff, beating center-right billionaire businessman and former senator Sebastián Piñera, with 53.5% of the vote. A moderate Socialist, she campaigned on a platform of continuing Chile's free market policies, while increasing social benefits to help reduce the country's gap between rich and poor, one of the largest in the world. Her term was inaugurated on March 11, 2006.

Bachelet is a pediatrician and surgeon with studies in military strategy, who served as Health Minister and Defense Minister under President Ricardo Lagos. She is a separated mother of three and a self-described agnostic <1>, which sets her apart in a predominantly conservative and Catholic country. She speaks Spanish, English, German, Portuguese, French, and some basic Russian.

...Ministership

Bachelet was appointed Minister of Health by President Ricardo Lagos on March 11, 2000. She began with an in-depth reform of the public healthcare system that led to the AUGE plan a few years later. She was also given the task of eliminating waiting lists in the public hospital system within the first 100 days of Lagos's government. Unable to meet this goal, she offered her resignation, which was promptly rejected by the President.

On January 7, 2002 she was appointed Defense Minister, becoming the first woman to hold this post in a Latin American country and one of the few in the world. While Minister of Defense, Bachelet oversaw a reform of the military pension system which is commonly viewed as a successful effort and continued with the process of modernization of the Chilean armed forces with the purchasing of new military equipment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Bachelet