The Inter-American Development Bank has announced the granting of a US$146 million loan to the Ministry of Public Health to fund a program aimed at strengthening health services management.
The program will expand five of the country’s nine regional health services, serving 45.6% of the population. An estimated 1.5 million of the country’s poorest people will benefit.
The program will fund the expansion of maternal and child centers of excellence in six public hospitals where more than a third of the country’s births take place.
The ministry will also be strengthened to expand results-based financing in the National Health Insurance system through the development of monitoring and evaluation tools for decision-making.
Other program activities including updating licensing standards and guidelines for health facilities, creating a unit for performance monitoring analysis and evaluation within the health ministry, and designing and implementing national standards for health care information systems.
It is expected that the project will result in a 30% reduction in maternal and infant mortality in hospitals with centers of maternal and child centers of excellence, and a 60% increase in the number of children aged between 15 and 24 months with full immunization.
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