Ramón Valdivieso

Ramón Valdivieso Delaunay (23 November 1902 – 11 December 1996) was a Chilean surgeon and academic, closely aligned with the Christian Democratic Party (PDC).

He served as Minister of Public Health throughout the administration of President Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964–1970).

Biography

He was born in Melipilla on 23 November 1902, the son of Ramón Valdivieso Navarrete and Ernestina Delaunay Darnaut, of French descent.

He married Lía Bustamante Ibáñez, with whom he had seven children: Carmela, Fernando, Jaime, Lía Josefina, María Alicia, Paulina, and Ramón Adolfo.

He studied at the Colegio de los Sagrados Corazones in Santiago and later at the University of Chile, graduating as a surgeon in 1927. He then traveled to Paris, France, to specialize in cardiology.

Back in Chile, he developed an extensive academic and medical career, working in several hospitals and teaching posts. He served for more than four decades at the Clinical Hospital of the University of Chile, retiring in 1970.

On 3 November 1964, newly elected President Eduardo Frei Montalva appointed him Minister of Public Health, a post he held until the end of the administration in 1970. He was occasionally replaced by other cabinet members, including William Thayer Arteaga and Alejandro Hales, during absences in 1965, 1966, and 1968.

Among the laws he promoted were Law 16.774 on occupational accidents and professional diseases, Law 16.781 on employee curative medicine (both in 1968), and the decree creating the National Drug Formulary.

As Frei’s personal physician, he closely monitored the former president’s health in the years following his term, particularly in the months before Frei’s death in 1982.

In 1988, he co-founded the political movement Independents for Democratic Consensus.

He died in Santiago on 11 December 1996, aged 94.