As has been well documented, here at Salud por Derecho, we have been defending access to healthcare for all for many years and we work on the road to universal healthcare cover, the eradication of pandemics like HIV and access to affordable and quality medication.
Faced with the impact of the coronavirus and following the recommendations of the healthcare institutions, we have been working from home for the past week, overwhelmed by the advance of the virus but convinced that, together, we will defeat this disease. Over these days, which are also days of reflection, we have reached one definitive conclusion: if this pandemic is showing us one thing, it is the importance of continuing to defend the principles for which we work.
Today, conscious of the situation we are experiencing within public hospitals we cannot thank all our healthcare professionals enough for their titanic and heroic efforts. From our hearts, thank you. This crisis has manifested the importance of preserving and maintaining a strong, universal and efficient public health system. It is our hope that, once we overcome this pandemic, we see a reflection on the part of institutions and society that leads us to strengthen, and never to weaken, our marvellous public health system. We say that as we remember the most vulnerable in our society and migrants who today still have no access to health services due to their administrative status. Now more than ever it is important to leave no one behind.
Meanwhile, we are staying abreast of the efforts that both public and private institutions are undertaking, against the clock, to be able to develop a vaccine or treatment that can halt the spread of this virus and we hope that when all this work bears fruit, that the public efforts being made are valued, with fair prices that ensure access for all persons who need it.
We know that this is a very complicated time and all of us here at Salud por Derecho want to send strength and encouragement to everyone, especially those families who have been impacted most directly by this disease. The coronavirus crisis will end, and we will come out the other side as a more united and informed society faced with an opportunity that we must seize. So that access to healthcare is always a basic right and never a privilege.
