ABSTRACT
Work related diseases and common diseases are covered by separated health systems in Chile. Chilean Ministry of Health focuses on common diseases, making work related diseases almost absent from public health policies. In this article current national and international information about the magnitude and impact of silicosis is reviewed. Although the quality of the national information is suboptimal, it is possible to estimate in several hundreds of thousands the number of workers exposed to silica dust, tens of thousands those under medical surveillance and thousands those currently affected by the disease. Albeit, additional efforts need to be made to estimate the burden of this disease on the Chilean population, information gathered in this article suggests that it is a relevant public health issue, deserving more importance among public policies in our country.
Las enfermedades comunes y laborales son atendidas en distintos sistemas de aseguramiento de la salud en Chile. Las políticas públicas emanadas del Ministerio de Salud se enfocan en las enfermedades comunes, relegando a un rol secundario a aquellas ocasionadas por la actividad laboral de las personas. En este artículo, los autores revisan información actualizada tanto nacional como internacional con el fin de determinar si la silicosis constituye un problema de salud relevante. Aunque la calidad de la información nacional no es óptima, su revisión permite estimar que son cientos de miles los trabajadores expuestos a sílice cristalina, que hay varias decenas de miles bajo vigilancia médica y que son más de mil los portadores de la enfermedad. Si bien es necesario hacer mayores esfuerzos para estimar la carga que esta patología representa para la sociedad chilena, la información recopilada indica que constituye un problema de salud pública relevante que debiera tener mayor protagonismo en las políticas públicas de nuestro país.
Subject(s)
Humans , Silicosis/etiology , Silicosis/epidemiology , Occupational Exposure , Occupational Diseases , Chile/epidemiology , Public Health , Risk Factors , Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive/pathology , National Health ProgramsABSTRACT
In recent years, students have been steadily gaining a much more active role in the process of curriculum reform of undergraduate medical studies which has been conducted at the University of Chile, participating in different stages of curriculum transformation, generating discussion and demanding greater incidence on decision-making arenas. Such participation has led to students diagnoses and proposals that have been presented in institutional democratic spaces. Nevertheless, there are still some pending challenges in this reform, like: improving the quality of teaching in all clinical campus, studying and implementing measures to reduce the impact of a negative environment, improving the monitorization of its alumni and the compliance of the graduates profile, deepening the process of professionalization of teaching and promoting a democratic culture by encouraging the inclusion of all clinical campus in decision making spaces. Despite all the difficulties identified, ongoing curricular reform process is perceived by the students as an opportunity to move forward in the building of a participatory Medical School, which can respond with excellence to the needs and demands Chile makes to its largest and oldest public university.