Helia Molina

Helia Molina (Helia Agueda Molina Milman, born in Santiago on 2 April 1947) is a Chilean physician, educator and health official whose career joined paediatrics, primary care and public policy for children. She took her medical degree at the University of Chile in 1971, qualified as a surgeon there in 1973 and later earned a master's degree in public health in 1999. She taught paediatrics at the Pontifical Catholic University and worked as a clinical doctor at the Sotero del Rio Hospital until 1990, directed primary care for the Oriente Metropolitan Health Service in the early 1990s, and became the first woman to preside over the Chilean Pediatric Society. From 2000 to 2004 she advised the Pan American Health Organization on children's health, and she later helped run the Chile Crece Contigo child protection programme. She served as Chile's Minister of Public Health in 2014 under Michelle Bachelet and has been dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of Santiago since 2017.