Fast Food, Chronic Diseases here Public and Private Services here Letter: Health Crisis in Ecuador here
Fast Food, Chronic Diseases, and the Capitalist Business of Our Health
EL SALVADOR, October 7— “The health of the working class is shaped by the capitalist system. While millions of us work long hours for wages that barely cover our basic needs, large fast-food chains and manufacturers of ultra-processed foods place cheap products within our easy reach,” said C.
“The problem isn’t simply that a worker buys a hamburger or a sugary drink. The contradiction lies in a system where it is often easier and cheaper to consume processed food than to have consistent access to healthy food, which only a portion of the population can afford,” commented A.
Why is food that can make us sick accessible to us, while healthy eating becomes increasingly difficult?
“Diseases linked to excessive consumption of sugar, fat, and sodium are associated with obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. These diseases also create markets for doctors’ visits, medications, tests, treatments, and hospitalizations. Health ceases to be merely a human need. It becomes a space where profits are made, while the consequences fall on our families,” concluded D.
“How much money does a preventable chronic illness generate?”
This question reveals a contradiction: the working class produces value, but different sectors can accumulate profits off our basic needs: food, housing, health care, and medicine.
“Capitalist theft doesn’t just happen when they directly take our wages away. It also happens when the value we produce is used to sustain businesses while our needs remain unmet,” said F.
“We need to put a stop to this theft. We workers must discuss, organize, and fight for a communist society where production and services are aimed at satisfying human needs and not at enriching a minority,” concluded A.
Let’s all discuss: Who controls the value we produce? Who benefits from our illnesses? Why are our needs turned into business opportunities? Why does a society that possesses the resources and knowledge to prevent many diseases allow our basic needs to become opportunities for profit?
Capitalism turns our needs into commodities and can transform their consequences into new markets.
The working class produces food, builds hospitals, keeps factories running, and keeps society functioning. We, the masses, have the power to transform this reality by organizing the ICWP and fighting for a communist revolution.
In communist society, nothing will be organized around profit. Nothing will be bought or sold. The goods and services we produce collectively will be shared to meet the needs of the masses.
Accessible, healthy food, clean water, decent housing, time to rest, safe working conditions, and appropriate health services must be available to all, not hoarded for the few.
Health must not be a commodity! The value we produce must serve the needs of the working class!
What Do Public and Private Services Have in Common?
The government of El Salvador introduced the DoctorSV app last year as a public telemedicine tool to treat diabetes, hypertension, and other conditions. The program includes technology, staff, medications, tests, and other components. Also, the contracting of specialized services and external networks, including pharmacies and clinical laboratories.
Under capitalism, both private companies and public institutions operate within a system that prioritizes profitability and the accumulation of value over the needs of the working class. Public resources often end up propping up businesses and contracts. We workers continue to pay the price.
We do not need reforms that attempt to humanize a system based on exploitation. Nor do we need companies that profit from our illnesses. So we must ask: How are public resources organized and used? Who manages the services, and who ultimately benefits financially from our healthcare needs? Do they truly meet the needs of the working class?
El Salvador National Hospital was established as a public institution. It offers services such as clinical laboratory testing and radiology. “If the government can allocate resources to health care, why not direct those resources primarily toward strengthening infrastructure, workers, and health services?” asked a worker.
What we call “the government” is the organized dictatorship of the capitalist class over the working class. We workers must prepare for communist revolution to destroy the capitalists’ government. And today’s system based on exploitation for profit. Only then can the working people, organized as a mass communist party, eliminate private companies and create public institutions that truly meet our needs.
Letter: The Health Crisis in Ecuador
“He or she who has health, has hope. He or she who has hope, has everything.” This interesting phrase about health doesn’t really apply today in Ecuador.
That is the harsh reality hitting our country, without short-term solutions, and even worse, without long-term solutions. In capitalism, that is. Hospitals are understocked and the healthcare system lacks primary care to improve the quality of life for Ecuadorians.
More than 20,000 patients in Ecuador depend on dialysis. Eighty-eight percent of them go to private clinics that sell the service from the IESS (Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security) to all public hospitals in the country. The state debt is US$ 400 million, and each dialysis patient costs $1,456 per month to stay alive. Currently, the state prioritizes paying external debt to imperialist banks over investing in health.
More than 4,000 deaths were recorded from 2024 to September 2026 due to lack of dialysis and medications. The shortage of medicines and devices throughout the public network is unsustainable. Supply in public hospitals dropped to only 55% in August 2026 and is trending downward.
The rise in cancer is real, with 3,204 new cases and 5,700 deaths in 2024. Guayaquil alone went from 24,425 consultations in 2024 to 37,246 in 2026. Colon cancer went up from 250 cases to almost 400, and it’s still trending upwards.
Corruption is out of control in contracts with external providers and the purchase of medicines that never arrive. People are spending out of their own pockets because the hospital has nothing. The tax money that was supposed to buy medicines went into overpricing and debts.
Health has always been considered the main focus of human existence. But nowadays for capitalism it’s a business and a privilege for a few capitalists who see diseases and death as a source of more profit and power.
Health should never be seen as an expense. It’s the best investment because without health, there’s no life. And without life, there’s no revolution or change.
The capitalist system is collapsing. It can’t go on anymore. We need to wake up and, as the working class, understand that the only way to win is always going to be a communist revolution to achieve total well-being. In communism, the masses’ health will be the most important thing. Health care, like everything else, will be free, collective and the highest quality care possible will be available to all the masses.
—Comrade in Ecuador
Please send your letters, responses, and suggestions to: contact@icwpredflag.org