Public demonstrations for health as a fundamental human right in Colombia: 1994-2010]

This study reconstructs the health struggle in Colombia during implementation of the health reform from 1994 to 2010, based on an analysis of primary and secondary sources. The study focus is political struggle, a theory of collective action based on a relational perspective between collective actors and the political structure to comprehend historical transformations. Three episodes in the struggle are reconstructed, revealing a causal link between protests and structural reforms in social and health policy. The struggles by subordinate actors highlighted the dispossession of labor rights, crisis in public hospitals, and access barriers to services as adverse effects of the reform, even while government favored private capital interests. The protests continued despite anti-union violence and government crackdown, while new actors and a national health movement reshaped the public sphere, building an identity around the struggle for the fundamental right to health.