Social Medicine in Chile (1920-1950)

Abstract

The article looks into the main proposals concerning the “socialization of medicine” that emerged in Chile after the Social Insurance for blue-collar workers, in 1924, was enacted. The democratic environment guaranteed the free deliberation of divergent projects designed to foster social medicine or, inversely, to restrain the State intervention in health care. Doctrinaire conflicts stimulated by the intended changes were overcome in the post II World War, when the Servicio Nacional de Salud (1952), inspired by the British National Health Service (1948) was created. Nevertheless, in spite of advanced conceptions of social medicine, in national and even continental terms, the Chilean political conjuncture restrained the initial purpose of building a universal and egalitarian public health system similar to the English model, based on health care as a right of citizenship.