​Bogotá, June 13, 2022. This Monday, at the Casa de Nariño, a decree was handed down, issuing the 2022-2031 Ten-Year Public Health Plan, a state policy that will guide the country's health actions for the next ten years.

Video of the minister of Health and Social Protection, Fernando Ruiz.

Fernando Ruiz, minister of Health and Social Protection, told the President of the Republic of Colombia, Iván Duque, that "today we are fulfilling one of your government promises, which was enshrined in the Development Plan. The day I took office, you asked that this Ten-Year Public Health Plan, with all the sectoral policy, become a state policy. Today we are keeping our promise to the country."

The fact is that the 2022-2031 Ten-Year Public Health Plan is a public policy that cuts across the entire national government. The 18 ministries and three administrative departments, in addition to the president, signed the decree, committing to join forces for the health and well-being of all people living in Colombia.

The minister stressed that this Ten-Year Plan has even more value, not only because it is prepared with an intersectoral line of action, but also because it collects the needs and expectations of the population in a differentiated manner and with high representation, throughout the national territory.

The 2022-2031 Ten-Year Public Health Plan is guided by principles of dignity, progressiveness, equity, social and distributive justice, prevalence of the general interest, inclusion, transparency, and comprehensiveness, as established by the Statutory Health Law (Law 1751, 2015). Similarly, it is based on pillars such as: social protection, culture for life and health, environment and health, and integrality in health.

The head of the ministry explained the main objectives of the policy. "We project that, with this Plan, in ten years, we will have made progress in guaranteeing the right to health with equity and timeliness, thanks to this intersectoral action for the management of the social determinants of health."

Also, he underscored that "it is a priority to reduce avoidable deaths. COVID has reminded us that any sacrifice we make to avoid a death will be worth it. The same is true about preventable morbidity and disability; we need the patient to be at the center of the system and receive quality and timely care to positively impact their years of healthy life."

Similarly, one of the goals is to advance towards the improvement of the living conditions of the population groups, through the reduction of social inequalities in health between socially constituted groups, and the guarantee of the effective enjoyment of a healthy environment and the improvement of environmental health.

The head of the health ministry noted that "as the Ministry of Health, we are satisfying this essential responsibility of giving the country its Ten-Year Public Health Plan, for which we feel immensely satisfied and we thank all the Colombians who participated in it, and the different ethnic groups who endorsed it to be able to make this plan a reality."

The administrative act was signed between the Ministries of the Interior; Foreign Affairs; Treasury and Public Credit; Justice and Law; National Defense; Agriculture and Rural Development; Health and Social Protection; Labor; Mines and Energy; Commerce, Industry and Tourism; National Education; Environment and Sustainable Development; Housing, City and Territory; Information Technology and Communications; Transportation; Culture; Science, Technology and Innovation; and Sport; as well as the Administrative Departments of the Presidency (DAPRE), National Planning (DNP), and Social Prosperity (DPS).

Challenges and lines of action

Ruiz delved into the challenges and goals set, which are divided into strengthening intersectoral articulation for the management of social determinants of health, and intersectionality, which recognizes that multiple discriminations increase the burden of health inequalities in specific historical, social, and cultural contexts.

"One of the things that we must work on the most is the strengthening of the comprehensive territorial management of public health. We need to implement a model of territorial management that guides, articulates and allows us to recognize and harmonize the interests of the different actors, to attend effectively to people's health needs and expectations," he said, adding that "it is clear that the health needs of Amazonas are not the same as those of La Guajira; and this is the case with the entire country, since geographic and cultural diversity prompts us to perform differential management."

The technical document highlights six strategic axes for public health management, which are:

• Government and governance of public health

• Intersectoral management of the social determinants of health

• Comprehensive management of primary health care

• Comprehensive risk management in public health

• Knowledge management for public health

• Management and development of public health care workforce

In 2026, 2029 and 2032, the outcomes of the actions will be assessed, and the progress and achievements of the goals proposed in the 2022-2031 Ten-Year Public Health Plan will be verified.

Social agreement

The Ministry of Health and Social Protection, through the Epidemiology and Demography Directorate, led the participation process for the preparation of the Policy, which was carried out in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which represented limitations, challenges and outstanding achievements.

Between October 2021 and February 2022, 169 zonal working groups, 33 province working groups, 8 regional working groups, 2 national meetings and 16 workshops aimed at children and adolescents were held. There was a total of 9,310 representatives from the health sector and other public sectors, academia, organized civil society and territorial entities.

Meanwhile, the public consultation of the technical document added 4,343 contributions from citizens and people knowledgeable about health issues, from the 32 provinces and the capital district.

In this process, working groups were also held with representatives of indigenous, black, Afro-Colombian, Native Islander, Palenque, Rom communities and victims of the armed conflict, as well as participatory meetings with representatives of the migrant population.

In addition, it included workspaces within the health ministry and its affiliated entities, as well as agreement and validation tables for sectoral and intersectoral actions.

It should be noted that, for the first time, an articulating committee made up of academia, the health sector and territorial entities was formed, in which more than 200 representatives contributed to the formulation and validation process and will continue to accompany the implementation phase as a guarantee of the continuous improvement of the processes.

"This has been a concerted policy and it was also endorsed by the Pan American Health Organization and by the Institute for the Evaluation of Social Sciences of Argentina, which conducted a complete revision of the Plan and made different comments for implementation," Ruiz said.