The Right to Health in Colombia: The Ethnic Differential Approach within the Framework of Current Reform Efforts

Abstract

The document analyzes the structural and regulatory barriers that limit equitable access to health care in ethnic communities in Colombia. Faced with a health system marked by persistent inequalities, structural racism, and institutional failures, historically excluded groups encounter discriminatory care and a lack of cultural relevance. The research employed a qualitative hermeneutic design, with documentary analysis of laws, jurisprudence, and primary and secondary sources, and used an interpretive-deductive method to identify the tensions between regulation and social reality, emphasizing the importance of intercultural recognition and equity. The findings show structural deficiencies in the system, ongoing discriminatory practices, and the absence of effective implementation of ethnically differential treatment, which constitutes a systematic violation of the fundamental right to health. In response, the study calls for urgently articulating public policies with an intercultural perspective, strengthening health governance, and promoting community participation in decision-making. It concludes that the reforms have not achieved the expected equity and provides legal and bioethical foundations to guide differential public policies and intercultural health justice.