Global health. The current scenario and future perspectives

255 inequalities that persist in our societies more evident, especially in Latin American countries. Moreover, in terms of governance, the outbreak of the pandemic caught many Latin American countries amidst extremely complex and precarious political situations, characterized by citizens’ distrust in government capabilities and very low levels of support for them. This further complicates managing the response to the health, social and economic crisis caused by Covid-19 due to reduced legitimacy of these governments. However, the increased visibility of inequities has also provided opportunities for taking action and generating urgently needed changes. In the specific field of health systems, the response to the pandemic has also highlighted the importance of integrated and coordinated health systems, particularly public systems. This is reflected in public acknowledgments made by prominent political figures such as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the President of France regarding their respective health systems (Macron, 2020). An interesting experience to analyze is the response of Chile’s health system to Covid-19, in which the sanitary authority, enacted through a constitutional state-of-emergency decree issued by the government, had established from the start a centralized management of total hospital beds availability from both public and private providers under an integrated health system concept (Minsal, 2020). This enabled patients requiring care to be derived regardless of their social security system to available ICU beds at both public and private hospitals. In practice, this meant integrating the functioning of public and private provider sectors into a single health system with a shared objective. Additionally, this generated a significant sign of equity, because in a situation where the hospital system’s capacity was fully occupied, a high-income individual who had always easily accessed healthcare due to their high income might not find an available ICU bed because it would be occupied by someone who had been assigned the bed earlier by the health authority. The distress that this high-income person would likely experience in being unable to access healthcare is an everyday reality for the poorest and most vulnerable segments of the population and perhaps it can increase social awareness regarding the need to ensure access to healthcare for all individuals, regardless of their income levels, strengthen the principle of solidarity and facilitate the required changes in the health system. To improve equity of access and strengthen the continuity of healthcare, it is essential to fortify integrated networks of health services (PAHO, 2010). In this perspective, two areas that require special mention are human resources for health and information systems. Human resources need to be appropriate in terms of quantity and quality. This will require state policies reflected in stable long-term agreements between governments and training centers, based on country objectives that transcend the