San Salvador, 22 October 2019.
The Ministry of Health of El Salvador (MINSAL) will invest US$850,000 until January 2021 with the objective of further strengthening and improving the quality of health services for women and children in the poorest areas of the country. This investment is the result of a new agreement reached with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to extend the activities of the Salud Mesoamérica Initiative (SMI), a project that has made significant progress over the past eight years in providing access to quality health services for more than 26,000 children and 59,000 women.
The investment committed by the Salvadoran health authorities will be rewarded by a contribution of US$680,000 financed by SMI partners, if the country meets the objectives set at the beginning of this operation.
The main objective of this project is to improve the quality of maternal and child care in hospitals that serve the poorest municipalities of the country.
The hospitals that will receive this investment are the Dr. Francisco Menéndez National General Hospital in Ahuachapán, the San Rafael National General Hospital in La Libertad, the Dr. José Luis Saca National General Hospital in Ilobasco, the Sensuntepeque National General Hospital, the Santa Gertrudis National General Hospital in San Vicente, the Nuestra Señora de Fátima National General Hospital in Cojutepeque, the Santa Teresa National General Hospital in Zacatecoluca, the Dr. Héctor Antonio Hernández Flores National General Hospital in San Francisco Gotera and the Santa Rosa de Lima National General Hospital.
The new commitment of the Salud Mesoamérica Initiative in El Salvador comes after the great advances achieved in the two previous operations, which began in 2012 and 2015 with the objective of contributing to the reduction of maternal and infant morbidity and mortality in 14 of the poorest municipalities of the country through the strengthening of the Comprehensive and Integrated Health Networks.
SMI in El Salvador has had very good results, including: an increase in institutional delivery, from 85.7% in 2013 to 98.3% in 2017; an increase in the use of modern family planning methods, which rose from 53.9% to 75% in just three years; prenatal care during the first trimester of pregnancy, which rose from only 58.7% in 2013 to 74.6% in 2017. Also noteworthy is the increase in the number of children aged between 12 and 23 months vaccinated against mumps, rubella and measles, from 65.5 per cent in 2013 to 91.1 per cent in 2017.
SMI is a public-private managed initiative created in 2011 and managed by the IDB that aims to support Mesoamerican countries to achieve the health goals set for 2015, especially regarding women and children living in the poorest 20% of the population in Mesoamerica.
This partnership is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carlos Slim Foundation and the Government of Canada. The SMI project focuses on improving access to quality health services for 1.8 million women and children in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize and the state of Chiapas in Mexico.
About IDB
The Inter-American Development Bank's mission is to improve lives. Founded in 1959, the IDB is one of the main sources of long-term financing for the economic, social and institutional development of Latin America and the Caribbean. The IDB also conducts cutting-edge research projects and provides policy advice, technical assistance and training to public and private clients throughout the region.