Luis Fernando Solis Calvo reflects on the life and legacy of Dr Rocío Sáenz, celebrating her leadership in equity, people-centred care and integrated health systems.
A Life Committed to Equity and Integrated Care
During the International Conference on Integrated Care 2026 (ICIC26), we gathered not only to exchange knowledge and advance the field of integrated care, but also to pause and honour the life of an extraordinary leader, mentor, and colleague: Dr María del Rocío Sáenz Madrigal.
Her passing on 17 March brought together a community united by deep respect, gratitude, and a shared commitment to continue the work she so passionately led. Dr Sáenz understood, with both clarity and sensitivity, that health systems can only be truly effective when they are built with people at their core – recognising their lived realities, their contexts, and their life trajectories. This conviction guided her throughout a remarkable careerdedicated to advancing more just, humane, and integrated approaches to care.
She was a strong advocate for models of integrated, people-centred care capable of connecting services, levels of care, and sectors. For her, integration was not simply a technical aspiration, but a necessary pathway to respond more effectively and equitably to the needs of populations.
Her vision was deeply informed by systems thinking and a comprehensive understanding of the social determinants of health. This allowed her to go beyond improving service delivery, driving broader transformations in how care is understood, how health systems are organised, and how they relate to communities.
Leadership that shaped systems and communities
Dr Sáenz’s leadership extended across national, regional, and global spaces. She served as Minister of Health of Costa Rica, Executive President of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, President of the Latin American Alliance for Global Health, and founder of key initiatives such as the Patient Navigation Program and the Permanent Cancer Forum in Costa Rica. She also served as Executive Director of the Health Equity Network of the Americas, where her leadership helped shape a regional agenda grounded in equity and collaboration.
Her work with the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) and with many colleagues across the world was instrumental in the consolidation of what is now known as IFIC LatAm. This space reflects her strong belief in knowledge exchange, collective action, and capacity building as essential drivers for advancing integrated care in Latin America.
Those who had the privilege of working alongside her know that her leadership went far beyond the technical. She was a warm, generous, and deeply committed person, capable of building bridges across diverse actors, inspiring new generations, and sustaining a bold vision of health systems that are more humane, more solidaristic, and firmly grounded in equity.
Honouring her legacy today is not only an act of remembrance – it is a call to action.
It is a call to continue the path she traced, to strengthen integrated and people-centred care, and to reaffirm our collective commitment to advancing more just and equitable health systems for individuals, families, and communities.
Her legacy lives on in the work we continue to build together.
MEd. Luis Fernando Solís
University of Costa Rica