Earlier than expected, the discussion of health reform was raised in the House of Representatives and President Andrés Calle decided when an intense debate took place on the controversial article 42 that defines the meritocracy method for the selection of hospital managers in different regions.
The controversy intensified when the Minister of the Interior Luis Fernando Velasco defended before the plenary session of the Chamber that the governors and mayors can choose the directors of the hospitals in their regions, including a criterion of merit, but he literally requested that the term not be included. “contest”.
“If the House does not seek to combine the elements of meritocracy with the constitutional possibility of not taking the decision from the governors and mayors, this article will end up confronting the Congress against a good part of the opinion of the country ,” said the minister, repeating that The term of the competition will not be included.
Afterwards, the representative Jaime Salamanca of the Green Party said that “governors and mayors are not all politicians” and requested that a commission be created to find a formula for the selection of hospital directors which may combine the merit of the decision of the leaders.
That’s when the fight started. That article 42 that determines the selection of hospital directors created a new controversy in the House after Minister Velasco asked to find that formula so that the governors and mayors have the power.
“If what they have invented is a new trick to destroy meritocracy, tell the country,” asked representative Catherine Juvinao.
Velasco’s proposal also reveals a difference of opinion within the Government itself regarding health reform. The Minister of Health, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo, said he wants a merit contest in the selection of hospital managers, contrary to what Minister Velasco pointed out.
“I personally like a merit contest but this is not what I want, this is the decision of the Congress, there must be a middle ground,” said Jaramillo.
