New Public Health Law approved in Cuba

Havana, Dec 22 (Prensa Latina) Lawmakers at the National People's Power Assembly of Cuba (Parliament) on Friday unanimously approved a new Public Health Law, which updates and expands the people's rights. Before voting on the bill at the 2nd Ordinary Session of Parliament, the lawmakers held a broad debate at which they recognized the relevance of the legal document, which includes new provisions such as the people's right to a dignified death.

December 22, 2023
12:38

When presenting the legislation, Public Health Minister José Angel Portal explained that after the promulgation of the Constitution of the Republic in 2019 and in compliance with the first legislative schedule approved in that period, which contained in its projection a new Public Health Law, the Ministry set up an intersectoral and multidisciplinary work group.

“We took on the task of developing a policy to diagnose and project principles that would allow us to identify the needs to update Public Health Law No. 41, which dates back to 1983,” he explained.

He noted that this legislation allowed the conception of principles such as the right to universal and free health, which made it possible to provide a flexible legal framework, which made it possible to carry out the social and health transformation in the country, conceived by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.

Portal stressed that the new legal document takes essences from its predecessor, is enriched, updated, and gives way to a new law that transcends the political will to guarantee this right to health and reflects it in legal protection in a higher-ranking legal body.

This new standard has, among its main objectives, the development of the constitutional postulates that correspond to it in areas as diverse as political and economic foundations, rights, duties and guarantees and those referring to the structure of the State and the local People’s Power bodies.

It also reinforces the State’s responsibilities with public health at all levels and introduces the agreements adopted in international treaties into the Cuban legal system.

The law recognizes the main health, epidemiological tools, research and scientific techniques, which are satisfactorily practiced every day in the medical and social care of citizens.

Prior to its presentation in Parliament, the law went through an extensive consultation process involving medical students, members of the ministries of the Interior and the Armed Forces, medical brigades overseas and expert groups in the field, the minister added.

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