ABSTRACT
Public health initiatives in Latin America have developed distinctly throughout the region. Access to excellent health care is available in most major cities in Latin America, but access to health care and serious erosions of public health facilities and infrastructure is endemic in rural areas, especially in the poorest Latin nations. In contemporary times, many factors contribute to public health crises in Latin America. “Access” is the most pressing issue and it is estimated that 30 percent of Latin Americans have no access to any type of modern health care. There have been some significant medical breakthroughs in Latin America that have contributed to better health outcomes in the region and the world. Bleedings, prayers, and exorcisms were used to cure the sick and modern novelists have captured the essence of pre-modern medicine in works such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Of Love and Other Demons, which describes social neglect and medical malfeasance in eighteenth century Cartagena.
