Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez announced on August 20th the transformation of Honduras’ public health system. To this end, the government created the Special Commission for the Transformation of the National Health System. Piedad Huerta, member of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) will be part of the Commission as an observer. The emergency action plan includes the immediate provision of drugs. This is one of the main reasons why the Commision was created that will meet three times a week in the coming months to reform the Honduran public health system.
Piedad Huerta stressed that PAHO will be providing technical advice to the Special Commission. She explained that the work will begin with a diagnosis of the national health system, considering the current drugs distribution situation. The Commission defined that the three main problems to be solved in the Honduran health system are: the immediate supply of drugs in all hospitals and public health centers, the reduction of the surgical delay, which is estimated in at least 10,000 surgeries, and the reduction of waiting times for medical consultations.
Julieta Castellanos, former Dean of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), said that the directors of all the country’s hospitals and their collaborators will be invited to present recommendations to solve the problems described above, in the coming weeks. Huerta stressed that the commission will meet three times a week in an effort to resolve the Honduran health situation in the medium term.
Who is Piedad Huerta?
The PAHO representative in Honduras is a journalist with a Master’s degree in Public Health, both from the Ciudad Juarez Autonomous University in Mexico. Huerta joined PAHO in 1999 as a national consultant in the United States-Mexico border, where she coordinated several health-promotion projects. In November 2008, Huerta was appointed Senior Advisor to the Executive Office at PAHO headquarters, a post she held until her appointment as Representative in Honduras January 10th, 2018.