UN General Assembly
1989

The social results of the last two decades are self-evident. In 1968, life expectancy at birth for a Panamanian was 64.3 years; in 1987, when the stage of open aggression was reached, life expectancy was 72 years. Infant mortality, which had been 51.6 per thousand live births, had been reduced to 22.9. We increased the medical facilities from 189 to 608. The percentage of population covered by our social security programme, which includes free medical and dental care and had been 18.5 per cent, reached 62.5 per cent. The percentage of population to which drinking water was available climbed from 65 per cent to 86.2 per cent. Enrolment of university students in 1968 was 11,992; in 1987 it had reached 56,567, while the rate of illiteracy went from 20.7 per cent in 1970 to 13.2 per cent, according to the 1980 census. And in this decade, literacy programmes have multiplied and telephone service and electric power have been extended to practically the entire country.