The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) recognized Dr. Stella Bolaños Varela of Costa Rica Monday, September 25, for her outstanding career and longstanding commitment to the quality and management of health services in Costa Rica, by presenting her with the 2017 PAHO Award for Health Services Management and Leadership Services.

The award recognizes Bolaños Varela’s outstanding contributions to public health in health education and management of health services for the older adult population, and for her leadership in the development of people-centered models of care.

“I decided that instead of thinking about getting old and giving up, I should look for ways to contribute to change. I decided to do this through my actions, my knowledge and the wisdom my years have given me,” said Dr Bolaños Varela, who received the award during the 29th Pan American Sanitary Conference, being held this week at PAHO’s Washington, DC headquarters.

Bolaños Varela is a technical advisor on nonconventional care models in the Area of Comprehensive Care and Medical Management, at the Costa Rican Social Insurance Agency (CCSS, its initials in Spanish). She has 40 years of experience in the care of older adults and management of health care networks.

At the award ceremony she said that health facilities are, “Spaces that must respond to people’s needs with scientific, technical, technological, therapeutic, and rehabilitative approaches, but above all with a deeply human and spiritual approach, that guarantees sensitivity to suffering and pain, with experts who do not reduce people to dimensions or parts, and are aware of the value of life and the need to fight for integral well-being, without exclusion or inequality, from conception to adulthood.”

Bolaños Varela is a cofounder and was director of the San Francisco de Asis Hospital for terminal patients, and served as coordinator of the Medium-Stay Service at the National Geriatrics and Gerontology Hospital, which she also cofounded. She is a founding member of the Costa Rican Gerontology Association, former advisor on older adults’ health to the Ministry of Health, and a founding member of the Mangrove Foundation of Costa Rica.

Bolaños Varela has been a professor of internal medicine at the University of Medical Sciences in San José, Costa Rica; a geriatrics instructor for residents and staff at the Raúl Blanco Cervantes Hospital; and instructor on quality methodologies in health services management at the Center for Strategic Development and Information in Health and Social Security, among other functions.

“I am grateful for this distinction for myself and on behalf of all professionals who believe it is possible to permanently change our path so that our daily work in health facilities truly responds to the confidence of those who put their health, and in many cases their lives, in our hands,” she said.

Established in 1969, the PAHO Award for Health Services Management and Leadership Services is awarded by the governments of the Americas in recognition of outstanding contributions to improving health systems development; management and administration of health services; development of programs, projects or initiatives with coverage effects and access to health services at the national or regional level. The award consists of a diploma and a cash prize of US$5,000.

Previous winners include Pastor Castell-Florit Serrate of Cuba (2016); Miguel Ángel Lezana Fernández of Mexico (2014); Aron Nowinski of Uruguay (2012); John Edward Greene of Guyana (2011); and Elsa Yolanda Palou of Honduras (2010).

-Courtesy of PAHO / WHO, Washington, DC.