On July 11th, the Health Committee, in charge of debating the Organic Code of Health (COS) bill, held a special workshop regarding the fight against cancer. Wilson Merino, spokesman of the Agreement Against Cancer Network (RACC), recommended incorporating a comprehensive vision of the disease, which ensures better treatments but also guarantees the equal status of labor rights, prevention and containment actions for the families of the patients. The Committee will consider these recommendations, and will incorporate the pertinent ones, before finalizing the debate of the bill, something that will happen in the next 30 days.

The RACC promotes the incorporation of measures that transcend the oncological treatments. New work permits for parents of children with cancer, discounts on public transport fares for patients from remote provinces to facilitate trips to the main health care centers, and the creation of a Commission of Social Determinants against cancer to coordinate the promotion, prevention and dissemination of public policies for the benefit of cancer patients are the key points of their recommendations.

At the end of the July 11th workshop, Merino declared that he “trusts that the president, William Garzón (Alianza País-ruling party) and the Committee will listen to the proposals of the RACC, which are the proposals of the Ecuadorian people, since the initiative was sustained with more than one hundred thousand signatures in December of last year, and that they will incorporate them into the bill”.