• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 04 / 02 / 2011

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HAVANA – The Catholic Church sees an urgent need to seek “new formulas,” including an opening to private enterprise, in order to heal Cuba’s health-care system, which has deteriorated as a result of corruption, lack of funds and an unstable professional environment.

In an article posted on the Web site of the Catholic magazine Palabra Nueva, editor Orlando Marquez acknowledges that the 1959 Cuban Revolution achieved some notable social triumphs including health care, but the end of economic aid from the now-unexistent Soviet Union gave way to a chronic crisis.

“Ever since the conditions that permitted and guaranteed that praiseworthy health-care program disappeared, it has been an urgent matter to find new formulas to restore it and guarantee its stability,” Marquez says.

The island’s system of free universal healthcare is one of the revolution’s principal claims to fame, together with medical and pharmaceutical research, education and other social services.

Marquez suggests considering the participation of religious institutions in the health-care system, allowing cooperatives to provide some services, and combining public management with private enterprise.

The plan of economic reforms undertaken by the Raul Castro government includes strengthening the quality of health services through the efficient use of resources and the elimination of wasteful expenditures.

This project for “modernizing” the socialist economic model will be ratified at this month’s Congress of the ruling Communist Party, Cuba’s only legal political organization. EFE

Source: /www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14510&ArticleId=390688