Inírida (Guainía), March 6, 2021. In the observance of one year since the detection of the first case of Covid-19 in the country, the minister of Health and Social Protection, Fernando Ruiz, stressed that this has been a period presenting important advances and results, thanks to the support and effort of the National Government as a whole.
"The health emergency has enabled the consolidation of all the response capacity with more than 500 administrative acts of different types such as decrees, resolutions and circulars that have been issued throughout the last year," Minister Ruiz highlighted first.
He added that Colombia went from having one reference laboratory for Covid-19, to 165 throughout the country. Additionally, we went from 5,346 ICU beds in March 2020, to 12,002 currently in the national territory, reaching places such as Chocó and Buenaventura, which did not have these services before the pandemic.
Ruiz stressed that the Ministry issued biosafety guidelines for all social, institutional and economic activities. "In addition, almost 1 trillion pesos were allocated between bonuses for healthcare professionals, back wages and other actions for workers in the sector," he said.
In other developments, he indicated that $ 2.1 trillion were transferred to EPSs and IPSs for debt settlement under the End Point Agreement, and prior transfers for $ 5 trillion were formalized.
"A 10-fold increase in the country's telemedicine capacity, which ballooned from 1 million consultations a month to 10 million, which we have maintained in the last 6 months," said the minister.
Continuing with last year's progress, the minister brought to mind the 5.18% increase in the capitation payment unit (UPC) for 2021. "Also, 75 Unified Command Posts (PMU) for the response to Covid-19, as well as 1,300 press releases, videos and other communication actions."
Regarding investment in infrastructure, Ruiz revealed that this has been for $ 782,461,497,799, which includes infrastructure projects, endowment, ambulance projects, medical-dental units and extramural vehicles.
National Vaccination Plan
The senior official indicated that "This has been a set of actions, which the National Government has been able to undertake, to benefit Colombians in a contingency as complex as a pandemic, which mainly affects the most vulnerable populations."
Ruiz explained that within the framework of the PMU held in Inírida, with more than 350 people connected virtually at the national level from all EPSs, IPSs and territorial entities, the intervention, achievements and challenges in the progress of the National Vaccination Plan were reviewed.
"The situation of the Amazon belt, where we have already covered more than 50% in vaccination, was reviewed and we also allocated and distributed the vaccines corresponding to the last Pfizer-bilateral batch," said the minister.
Additionally, in the development of the PMU, new goals were established to further and finish the country's current vaccination stage with the immunization of frontline healthcare workers and population over 80 years of age.
In closing, the minister said that "we solved many issues and clarified different interpretations in the territories, and agreements were established between providers, insurers and territorial entities to be able to continue the containment of the pandemic and the vaccination process."
