Peru: Improving Health Care for the Poor - Summary Six

Conclusions and Recommendations

The final section of the report offers various recommendations about reforms that need to take place in order to improve health care for the poor. While Peru has seen marked improvements in many areas in the health care sector, a wide gap still remains between the outcomes of health care services for the poor and the non-poor. A continued emphasis must be placed on primary care in addition to caring for poor mothers and infants and controlling communicable diseases. 

There is a great need for expanded coverage and quality of maternal, prenatal, and perinatal services to improve the health status of mothers and infants. While these services need to be strengthened, it is also important to promote their importance to mothers and increase their use by the poor. Additionally, communicable diseases play a much deadlier role in the lives of the poor than in the rest of the population. In order to prevent many diseases and increase the quality of health among the poor, efforts must be put forth towards improving water and sanitation, education, and agriculture. 

It is also imperative that the poor have increased access to hospitals and health care clinics. There should be a certain percentage or amount of expenditures that must be allocated towards the treatment of the poor. This sort of reform would be difficult to achieve, however, because there is no clear way to define or identify the "poor."

The report also states several reforms that need to occur in the realm of Human Resource Policies, including the following, quoted directly from pages 62 and 63 in the report.

"Establish a human resources department in the ministry of health"

Currently (in 1999), MINSA does not have an administrative sector targeted towards addressing human resources issues. The main purpose of this sector would be to set a high and consistent standard for hiring and evaluating existing personnel. It also would be in charge of overseeing continuing education and training of all health professionals. 

"Introduce a public medical service examination"

This exam would be administered to all personnel seeking employment in the health field to clarify the high educational standards that must be met to work in the public sector. It would help raise the bar on the quality of professionals that are allowed to enter the field as well as provide a standard by which the medical universities and institutions can be held responsible. The ministry should be the main enforcer of educational standards and content in order to regulate the quality of education in all institutions.

"Introduce certification of university medical programs"

A certification process would exert direct pressure on universities to continually improve the content of physical training and educational standards.

These are just a few of the many improvements that are listed in Peru: Improving Health Care for the Poor. While I'm sure that much progress has been made in the health care system of Peru in the last 15 years, I am certain that there is still much room for improvement.  A great disparity still remains between the quality of care received by the poor and by the wealth, but that is a problem that even more developed countries face. Overall, I feel like MINSA and the health professionals are putting effort forth towards bettering the health of the entire country and while great progress has been made, there is still much to do.