Day 1 ⏐ Session 2
Keynote: There is always an alternative:
lessons from Costa’s Rica’s innovative community health system
This session starts with the story of an innovative community based health system in Costa Rica pioneered by Alvaro Salas, former President of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CR) and his team.
Alvaro tells us how he convinced political parties to think differently about healthcare. Instead of focusing on health in a clinical sense from within the four walls of a hospital, his team looked to distribute resources out into communities promoting public health and prevention.
This enabled a new set of community relationships that unlocked their own resources, animating new activity in the neighborhoods.
“All political parties in democracies are fundamental in order to improve what we have. [Health is first on the list]. Health is everything. Health is employment. Health is housing. Health is water supply. Health is vaccination programmes. Education. Health promotion. Health is everything. So we need all sectors around health.”
Quotes from the session
“...the team in Costa Rica is very clear that we have to start working at the school level… The more complicated issues in health requires education at the level of work, in the factories, where people live, in order for there to be a different scenario…” (Alvaro Sala)
Emerging question
How can ideas with different sources spread in new kinds of ways in order to reach the kinds of solutions Alvaro and others have pointed to?