- The money will be distributed in 24 of the 32 departments of the country. Main photo: EFE
The government of Colombia will allocate 326,926 million pesos (about 78.4 million dollars or 70.3 million euros) to public hospitals and private clinics to support them in the medical care of migrants. This was announced this Monday, September 30, by the Minister of Health, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo.
This investment, which will be made especially in the centers of the border towns with Venezuela, where there is a greater population that uses these services, will benefit 659 State Social Enterprises (ESE) and Health Service Provider Institutions (IPS).
“What we want is to support the hospitals that have not been adequately cared for so that they have resources,” Jaramillo said in a press conference and added that “all migrants have the right to the emergency service,” which is where they go when they cannot. They are insured.
The 326,926 million pesos will be distributed in 24 of the 32 departments of the country and are intended to “relieve” the debts resulting from the care of uninsured migrants, some 800,000 in total, and to care for those who are: 1.5 millions.
According to the director of the Resource Administrator of the General Health Social Security System (Adres), Félix León Martínez, payments will be made starting this Tuesday, October 1.
Venezuelan migrants in Colombia
Colombia is the country that most migrants from Venezuela has received in recent years and, according to official data, 2,876,960 citizens of that nation have settled.
The minister highlighted the case of the San José de Maicao Hospital, in the department of La Guajira (north), bordering Venezuela, which with the initiative will receive 32,220 million pesos (about 7.7 million dollars) for the care of 36,000 people of 450 Wayuu communities, an indigenous people who live between the two countries and have high rates of child malnutrition.
Jaramillo emphasized the situation of the towns closest to the Darién Gap, on the border with Panama, where epidemiological surveillance strategies are carried out due to the abundant flow of migrants and particularly with indigenous communities.
Migratory flow through the Darien
Until the month of August, at least 45 migrants died “trying to cross Panamanian territory” through the Darién jungle, the natural border with Colombia that in 2024 more than 230,000 people have traveled on their way to North America, reported the Thursday, August 22, the Panamanian authorities.
The Minister of Public Security, Frank Ábrego, said that this year about 45 people have lost their lives trying to cross Panamanian territory, after taking a “tour” through the communities of Cañas Blancas, Bajo Chiquito and Lajas Blanca, where there are shelters. that provide humanitarian aid to migrants crossing the Darien, according to a statement.
The Panamanian minister reiterated, once again, that the journey through the Darién is “deadly”, so much so that it even affects the agents of the National Border Service (Senafront) with heat stroke despite being “trained for this type of work.”
The exact number of deaths is not known, but, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and its Missing Migrants Project, from January of this year until July, some 135 people have died or disappeared in the Darién, the majority by drowning.
With information from EFE.
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2024-10-01 02:01:28
