RESUMO
Since 1990, health services decentralization in Nicaragua has been accompanied by structural adjustment, resulting in reduced equity and accountability. Sandinista efforts in the 1980s to extend access to primary care and reduce class and regional disparities in the delivery of health services were accompanied by modest attempts to increase local-level accountability and responsiveness. The escalation of war in the late 1980s transformed this effort into greater de facto decentralization. Over the past decade, Nicaragua has used decentralization policy to restructure the health system through health spending cuts and the favoring of curative over preventive services; privatization and the promotion of user fees; and confusion of lines of accountability. The authors analyze the 1990s' health policies in Nicaragua, paying particular attention to the blending of decentralization policy with the fiscal and administrative reforms advanced by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and other international agencies. They conclude that analyzing decentralization as a sector-specific reform that can be ameliorated through technocratic modifications is insufficient. A full understanding of the problems and possibilities of decentralization requires an analysis of the political and economic context that conditions these policies.
Assuntos
Atenção à Saúde/organização & administração , Política de Saúde , Política , Mudança Social , Nível de Saúde , Humanos , Nicarágua , Previdência Social/organização & administraçãoRESUMO
Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is a common X-linked enzyme defect. We report a new variant, G6PD Durham713G, that is associated with chronic nonspherocytic hemolytic anemia. The G6PD Durham713G variant has a unique biochemical and enzymatic profile and a novel A-->G substitution mutation at nucleotide 713, changing lysine to arginine at amino acid 238. This mutation was not found in the mother of our patient, indicating that G6PD Durham713G resulted from a de novo mutation.