President Gustavo Petro defended the public health model and sharply criticized EPS during his Labor Day speech in Medellín. Addressing a crowd in Las Luces park, he proposed a national constituent assembly. He highlighted achievements in health infrastructure, such as floating hospitals in remote areas.
On May 1, 2026, during Labor Day commemorations in Medellín's Las Luces park, President Gustavo Petro addressed a crowd of unions and civil organizations. Four months before his term ends, he defended his reform agenda, prioritizing labor rights and the public health system.
Petro criticized the Entidades Promotoras de Salud (EPS) model as inefficient. “The private EPS system is bankrupt because it has stolen Colombia's public money,” the president stated. He also faulted the Fomag's operations and noted that thousands of health professionals now serve historically underserved populations.
The president highlighted the strengthening of the public hospitals network as a key achievement. “We have two systems then: public hospitals that grow, that are born, that strengthen, hospital ships that sail the sea to care for people on the coast, hospitals on rivers navigating in the Amazon, in the Orinoquía, to reach the village where no doctor ever arrived, popular neighborhoods where a nurse arrives,” Petro concluded.
