Guatemala’s primary healthcare role in Covid-19: limits and potentialities

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has put health systems to the test. The experience described in the months of the pandemic has vindicated the need for systems based on Primary Health Care (PHC). This essay sought to describe the role of PHC in Guatemala in the implementation of public policies to contain the pandemic and discuss its limits and potential, contrasting with international experiences.

Four lines of analysis for PHC were discussed, the approach to social vulnerability, care coordination, epidemiological surveillance and health promotion, and intersectoriality. Guatemala presents difficulties due to the historical weakening of its health system, management of the pandemic with a hospital approach, temporary investment, flexible measures of social isolation, and the absence of dialogue.

International experience indicates that territorialized PHC, with population ascription, has an impact on reducing inequities, coordinating care for health promotion, strengthening epidemiological surveillance systems, and increasing intersectoral focus during the pandemic. Guatemala must recognize the potential of PHC to carry out structural and organizational reforms with an intercultural, gender, social participation, and intersectoral perspective.