Facilitating Policy Dialogue in El Salvador
Estimation Year
1997 - 2002
Actual Policy Use
NHA in El Salvador have been carried out consistently from 1997 to the present time. Health data pertaining to finances and expenditures had been obtain from various sources from 1996 to 2000; an analysis of trends has helped in conducting Health Sector diagnostics in the country; in analyzing equity, efficiency and sustainability; in making comparisons between countries; and in pointing out probable disparity of profits and access, among other things.
NHA in El Salvador has facilitated the following conclusions:
• A large potion of the population that becomes ill or is involved in an accident does not utilize services provided by the Ministry of Health, due to lack of medication, poor medical attention, because they do not believe it is necessary, or because they self-medicate
• Ther has been an increase in private participation in health expenditures
• There has been a low investment in preventative care
• There is a high-level of inflexibility in the healthcare expenditure profile
• GOES funds used to provide healthcare services have decreased
Which gives rise to:
• Increasing MSPAS Healthcare Coverage for the most vulnerable areas, therby strategizing to generate a Health care Network and provide a basic package of healthcare services
• Designing strategies and implementing standards in order to improve the quality of attention and control information and repayment systems
• A search for alternative financial resources
• In order to reduce inequity to the access to health services, the implementation of a non-payment policy for primary-care ambulatory services
NHA is a powerful tool is the decision-making process, but in El Salvador there is still a lot of ground to cover in utilizing them as a tool for policy monitering. This is due to the presence of opposing political factors (surroudning the democratization of health services) as well as ecomomical aspects (the current state of finances, efficiency and quality of services,) which all serve to restrict directly and indirectly the use of NHA as a starting point from which to unify National Healthcare Policy in El Salvador.
Source
Josué Hernández
