​04/21/2020

Press Release No. 183, 2020

- The economic recognition will benefit some 43,000 health workers in the country.

Bogotá, April 21, 2020. Inter-institutional work with other ministries and entities of the national government, together with the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, during the covid-19 epidemic, allowed establishing roadmaps and guidelines for proper management of the different sectors of the country, including the benefit of health personnel.

The Minister of Health and Social Protection, Fernando Ruiz, said that work is being done on economic recognition for members of the health sector who are on the front-line handling covid-19. "We have a budget of 450 billion pesos to benefit nearly 43,000 workers. It is a very big effort by the national government to support and enable all our professionals to come with a high sense of belonging and a clear recognition of what their job is in this eventuality," he said.

In addition, when referring to the work aligned with other ministries in the Prevention and Action program with President Iván Duque, the minister noted that seven additional protocols are being drafted for different sectors. "Some are specific, originating in a general one prepared by Ministry of Health," he said.

As for the health sector workers, Ruiz indicated that he has been talking with all the trade associations. "Tomorrow we have a meeting with all the medical colleges to find out how to promote the development of the sector and how to face the epidemic. There is a huge commitment to what we have to do to protect the Colombian population."

In relation to article 9 of Decree 538, 2020, the head of the health ministry indicated that a regulatory resolution was drafted at the Ministry of Health that has been submitted to the associations for consultation. "We hope to issue it tomorrow and have all the clarification on this issue of the call to professionals in the sector," he said.

Reproductive rate

Recently, Minister Ruiz has spoken on different occasions about the reproductive rate in the country, an important element in the statistics of the covid-19 epidemic in the territory.

"The reproductive rate seeks to measure how many people each person with covid-19 infects. We start with a person infecting 2.5 and this occurs exponentially. If we manage to lower that number so that it is close to one, we will end up with a growth curve that is not so high," he explained, considering that with a higher contagion rate, it may be impossible for the health system to respond, with the number of patients that there will be.

"We are getting closer to one. I wish we could get below that number at the end of this period, and from that point on we can continue to monitor, with the models of the National Institute of Health, the rate at which we are growing, in order to eventually take the measures to control a very severe impact," he concluded.