Social medicine and the experiences on primary health care (PHC) in Latin America: history with the same root

Abstract

The origins of the APS and the Policy HEALTH FOR ALL go back to the eighteenth century and the movement of Social Medicine on 1848. Twentieth century highlights the pioneering experiences of the years 30-50s. Among them, Chile, Saskatchewan (Canada), USA, South Africa, with Henry Sigerist, Sidney Kark, Salvador Allende, Gustavo Molina, pioneering work of social medicine and epidemiology related to the anthropologist Benjamin Paul. As well as less recognized characters, especially the Italian Franco Basaglia, APS who transformed psychiatric care and health with the principles of therapeutic freedom. To these are articulated numerous and unknown experiences in Latin America and Colombia with Héctor Abad Gómez, Santiago Rengifo and César Uribe Piedrahita by the process of PHC renewal» of the OPS. In Latin America, the struggles for health were articulated to the struggles for a just society, with people like Ernesto Guevara in medicine, Paulo Freire in pedagogy, theology and philosophy of liberation, and the sociologist Camilo Torres, who provided qualitative methodologies on health research, which altogether with views on integration such as Human Scale Development, consider health services as key elements in people’s lives, and contribute in building cross-disciplinary and intersectorial health for our today.