Abstract

FEO, Oscar  and  CURCIO, Pasqualina. Health care issue in the Venezuelan constituent process. Rev Cubana Salud Pública [online]. 2004, vol.30, n.2, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1561-3127.

The objective of this paper is to present the process of drafting the articles on health care of the Venezuelan Constitution carried out by the Health Sub-commission of the National Constituent Assembly that was in session during the second half of the year 1999. It is composed of three parts: background of National Constituent Assembly as well as the legal framework that characterized the health system during this period; 2) methodological aspects that characterized the drafting of the health care contents of the Constitution; 3) analysis of the articles that make up the present constitutional framework for health care in Venezuela and their most important features. The paper underlined the participatory nature of the drafting process of the articles on health care of 1999 Constitution as well as existing differences in terms of health between the new Constitution and that of 1961. The main difference is the recognition of health as a fundamental social right and the duty of the State to assure health, facing up to the privatization proposals that characterize the international context and consider that health should be placed on market, leaving the State the sole responsibility of providing care to the poorest. Lastly, the articles of Bolivarian Constitution are commented upon, underlining the mechanisms that will allow guaranteeing the right to health, setting the characteristics and principles that should be present in the new National Public Health Care System considered as inter-sectoral, decentralized and participatory

Keywords : constituent process; right to health; health policies; Venezuela.