I visited the San Rafael Waterfall, which is part of the Sumaco-Napo-Galeras National Park. Inside this National Park is Ecuador’s largest waterfall, the San Rafael Waterfall. I made the photo below while walking from the parking-space to the view-point for the waterfall.

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Discover Peru from abroad adventurous and luxurious trains.  This journey is not only for railway enthusiasts, since culturally interesting visit are organized during the journey and travel overland is an excellent opportunity to connect intimately with Peru.

Ecuador faces a huge challenge to increase the quality of its health care services for the future. A country has to offer decent health care services to the population in order to be considered a developed welfare state. Good health care services in Ecuador have been available exclusively to citizens who can afford private health care insurance and had; therefore, access to private doctors and medical institutions.  However, a large part of Ecuador’s population is reliant on the poor public health care system that has been marked by corruption and the influence of political parties among others. It cannot be denied that the present government is making improvements to the public health care services, but there is still a long way to go before the public health care achieves an acceptable standard for every citizen in the country.

Ecuador’s health care services have been strongly politicized; indeed, they were a money source for most political parties. The influence of political parties was the reason for a huge number of costly employees who were useless and indifferent offering the necessary health services to the population. The politically motivated management oftentimes badly invested funds, since they had never to fear internal and external controls for the money spent.  In short, Ecuador’s health care services were a disaster, which in many aspects reflected the political situation of the country.

With Rafael Correa’s government, political parties and politically influenced institutions lost much of their strength in the public sector, including the public health care services. Inadequate personnel had to leave governmental organizations and were replaced by a younger and more motivated workforce. Investments were also made to improve the public health care situation in remote rural areas, where it was the worst.  In spite of the recent changes in Ecuador’s public health care services, there is still a very long way to go before Ecuador’s health care services can be compared to those in industrialized countries. A health care system that was badly managed for a long time cannot be brought up to date from one moment to the next, in a short period of time; as a matter of fact, it takes time in large institutions to have an organization structured and a large number of trained and motivated staff.

A problem for Ecuador’s public health care services is the huge amount of capital needed to elevate the standard of the health care everywhere in the country. Creative ideas, as for instance, a closer cooperation between private and public health care organizations in cities and denser populated areas would save funds. In the areas of cooperation, public health care services would use private health infrastructure; as a result, they do not have to invest large sums for infrastructure everywhere in the country at the same time. Public capital would be used exclusively to increase the quality of the health care services in rural areas of the country. As a fact, the government needs to think “out of the box” to create good health care services that are available for everybody in the country; simultaneously, the available money has to be invested wisely to result in better public health care services.

To conclude, the quality of a health treatment given to a patient has always to be kept in mind when remodeling the public health care system. Most Ecuadorians do not want the politically influenced and corrupt health system which characterized Ecuador for many decades. The present government is investing large sums and has made important organizational changes in pubic health services that result in much better attention for many Ecuadorians.  Inspiration, new concepts, as well as courage, are necessary to create a public health care system for the future.  A healthy population is the key element to increase the population’s quality of life, the productivity, and, as a result, to increase Ecuador’s prosperity.