Right to Health and Public Procurement – A Pending Subject
- INTRODUCTION.
In Panama, the lack of continuity in projects, the delay in tenders or acts of contractor selection, the particular interests of some groups of businessmen, corruption that on some occasions has been proven after extensive judicial processes and non-execution of important works, are persistent challenges that directly affect the economic and social development of the country. It is regrettable that many of these issues and projects are managed as part of the plans of the governments in power instead of being conceived as an integral part of State policies, thus ensuring altruistic social purposes and their alignment with objectives and long-term needs of the country.
Thus, the Panamanian people demand efficiency, execution and transparency from the new government that will be presided by Jose Raul Mulino Quintero, who will come to power with his political party “ Realizando Metas.” Mulino has previously held public posts such as Minister of Public Security (2010 – 2014); Minister of Government and Justice (2009 – 2010); Minister of Government (1993 – 1994); Vice Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1990 – 1993). “Information on public posts obtained from the website: “Informed Vote” of the Electoral Tribunal and the government plan provided by the campaign of candidate José Raúl Mulino”.
- IMPORTANT WORKS THAT HAVE NOT COME TO A HAPPY CONCLUSION.
Due to its importance, in this short article we will mainly address the issue of the health sector, which maintains a large number of needs that have not been able to be satisfied by previous Governments and that are of great concern to the Panamanian population.
This article does not intend to specifically mention a large number of projects and/or shortcomings in the health sector, but rather to point out specific cases that serve as examples to illustrate a general and disturbing situation, such as the case of the construction project of the New Oncology Hospital, with an estimated cost of more than four hundred and fifty (450) million dollars, which as we have seen has experienced a series of setbacks that go beyond the abuses that different administrations have allowed by the interested economic sectors in seeking the awarding of this act at all costs without caring about the health, personal integrity and even the lives of the patients and final recipients of this great work.
A similar situation is currently facing the public tender called by the Social Security Fund with an estimated cost or reference value of one hundred and eighty (180) million dollars for the contracting of the “Hemodialysis Service as well as the Design, Construction and Accommodation of Units.” or Hemodialysis Rooms”, which, as stated by the Social Security Fund in a statement published on May 23, 2024, this process has been trying to be concluded since the first quarter of 2022, however, it has not been able to be executed due to multiple appeals filed by a company or group of companies that, according to the Social Security Fund “S.S.F.” itself, benefit from these delays since they provisionally make them maintain the provision of hemodialysis services, a service that for obvious reasons is lucrative for the plaintiff of the aforementioned appeals.
It is interesting to observe how, for both public officials and unscrupulous businessmen, legal formalities and economic interests find even greater preponderance in their daily lives than the right to health of human beings, which we know is a first generation human right due to connection, since, as has been symmetrically reiterated by Courts of Justice at the international level, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as well as important doctrinaires such as Oscar Parra Vera (Master in Law and in Criminology and Criminal Justice graduated from the University of Oxford. Thesis “The Judicial Protection of the Benefit Dimensions of the Right to Health”), it is possible to demonstrate an inseparable link between these benefits and/or social rights (Right to Health) and the fundamental right to life and personal integrity, a position that has been known internationally as “the connection thesis” due to the demands derived from international covenants on human rights, which are part of the “constitutionality block.”
In this sense, the Colombian Constitutional Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have stated in a symmetrical and extremely clear manner that “there are three criteria to understand the right to health as a fundamental right: (1) due to its connection with other fundamental rights (in connection with the right to life), (2) due to their importance in relation to subjects of special constitutional protection (the right to health of older adults is an autonomous fundamental right), (3) as an autonomous fundamental right in relation to its minimum content (fundamental benefit right). Thus, after these advances in the protection of the right to health, it is reprehensible and difficult to understand that, in Panama, we have this cruel and selfish reality for those patients who suffer and die every day, since for various reasons, the State does not provide them with the dignified and judicial medical care referred to in our Constitution and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
It is public knowledge that this same situation is faced by a multiplicity of public infrastructure works, supply of products and inputs and rendering of services, totally necessary and indispensable for the Panamanian population, which this new government will have to find a way to make a reality within the scenario of public debt, shortages, lack of training, corruption and other problems that it finds or will find entrenched in the bowels of the public administration that it is now up to it to lead by electoral design.
- CONCLUSION.
As we have mentioned, the elected president will encounter a series of problems and unfavorable scenarios to find solutions, however, we are of the opinion that the public administration led in an ideal way, with trained administrative and technical personnel, eliminating existing corruption, will be able without a doubt, succeed and lift the thriving but battered Panamanian economy; However, if drastic changes are not made in the policies of the government and country, in order to exterminate these social problems and promote the credibility of Panama, as well as attract foreign investment, and seek to strengthen legal security, we will not be able to get out of the malignant and adverse scenario in which we find ourselves in the face of what is explained here.
Additionally, it is an urgent obligation of this new administration to carry out the actions that are necessary to generate an increase in the execution of the pending infrastructure works that the country maintains, all of which will contribute to the growth of the economy, the creation of jobs, competitiveness and to improve the living conditions of the population in general.
