Pandemic and neoliberalism: The bill just arrived

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted many things, including the importance of robust public health systems in times of health crises. However, health sector policies throughout Latin America have gone in the opposite direction of that observed in most developed countries that have responded well to the pandemic.

The article “Facing the Pandemic in Latin America: An analysis of vulnerabilities after 30 years of neoliberalism” analyzes the arguments and perspectives that led to depleted health and other public services in the region over the past few decades. It is the second of a series of four articles by Public Services International (PSI) in association with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation that investigate how free trade agreements, neoliberalism, and the lack of tax fairness in Latin America have undermined the health and socioeconomic development strategies in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The article reports that in countries like Brazil, the availability of Intensive Care beds in the public sector is only 10 for every 100 thousand residents, while in the private system there are 48. There are, on average, 24 public ICU beds for every 100 thousand residents in Europe.

Download the publication:

The first article, “Pandemic: Big Business for Transnational Corporations”, was launched on August 5th. That article explained how clauses contained in free trade agreements, known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms, can allow large transnational companies to take legal action against governments’ emergency responses to the pandemic.