Salvadoran health professionals prevent privatization of health care, 2002-2003
In 2002, El Salvador was under intense pressure from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to privatize its healthcare system, which had up until that point been controlled by the government and available to all legally employed Salvadorans. The system, while admittedly seriously lacking in the services that it provided to the typical Salvadoran, had shown marked improvements over the past few years. A widely popular 1999 strike by the ISSS, the healthcare workers union, had prevented the country from privatizing healthcare and since that point services had graduall