The health units: An exemplary model in the historical evolution of public health in Costa Rica

Abstract

Due to the scarce information, as well as the little anecdotal and historical compilation of the
Health Units in Costa Rica, they have generated ignorance about their fundamental importance in the history
of the development of health services, particularly, the leading role of these in the Public Health of our
country.
The Health Units reflected the transition of the changes in public policies of the Health System of Costa Rica,
with evolution of more than a century, consisted of a focus on charitable and charitable organizations, which
was subsequently provided by the Social Protection through the Costa Rican State.
In the seventies with the universalization and transfer of the Hospitals of the Board of Health and their
functions to the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, the Health Units are part of the State policy in the coverage
of health protection and care, because this covered those populations that were not initially protected by the
Costa Rican Social Security Fund, thus forming part of the foundation of the universalization of access to
health that