Minister of People’s Power for Health Carlos Alvarado held on Friday a meeting with UN System representatives and other international organizations in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The meeting was attended by members of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, Doctors Without Borders Venezuela and Doctors of the World – Spain.
The Venezuelan authorities attending the meeting included the Health Ministry’s Vice-minister of Resources, Technology and Regulation, Gerardo Briceño; the Vice-minister of Collective Health Networks, Marisela Bermudez; the Vice- minister for Hospitals, Luis Lira; the Vice-minister of Outpatient Care Network, Odilia Gómez; the Vice-minister of Comprehensive Health, Yuliana Ramos; representatives of the Office for International Affairs, and Pedro Albarrán from the Vice-ministry of Multilateral Affairs of Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry.
Minister Alvarado offered an overview of technical assistance and cooperation, and provided details on the main problems of the health sector in Venezuela, the COVID-19 situation, as well as technical assistance and cooperation with the UN System.
The Venezuelan health minister stressed that the main problems faced by Venezuela include resources frozen in international banks and induced inflation, which prevent the country from procuring medical supplies and equipment.
In the meeting, the Health Ministry’s Director of Public Policies, María Esperanza Martínez, thanked the United Nations for its cooperation and support, and stressed the importance of strengthening coordination mechanisms.
“This work is going to allow us to plan and resume the strengthening of the capacity installed in the country, which has managed to build a new Public National Health System in the last 20 years to attend to and cover the Venezuelan population,” sha said.
In this regard, Martínez explained that Venezuela’s primary healthcare centers went up from 4,000 to 13,000 in the last 20 years. “We also turned a vertical system concentrated on the main big cities into a health system distributed in 593 comprehensive, community health areas, achieving more than 1,000 malaria health points nationwide.”
The Venezuelan official reiterated Venezuela relies on an important capacity for a solidarity-based cooperation to produce great results for the Venezuelan people and share with other countries.
“However, the freezing of resources to procure medical supplies represents a serious problem we need to address together. We hope you accompany us as a humanitarian principle to overcome this blockade,” Martínez pointed out.
Finally, Minister Alvarado thanked the UN System and other international organizations for their cooperation to address and handle the COVID-19 pandemic and the region’s health situation.