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Panama takes initiative for services of maternal, reproductive, neonatal and child health care.
– Reported, June 06, 2013
The Government of Panama, through its Ministry of Economy and Finances, signed the first operation in the country of the Salud Mesoamérica 2015 Initiative (SM2015) to enable the launch of the activities set out in the donation agreement. The agreement will benefit more than 10,200 women of reproductive age and more than 8,050 children under five years of age living in the indigenous regions of Kuna Yala and Embera-Wounaan, in the north-east part of the country.
The signature comes after months of joint work by officials from the Ministry of Health, IDB specialists and the SM2015 Initiative. The Panamanian Governments commitment and interest to carry this Initiative forwardan initiative addressed to the most vulnerable indigenous groups in the countryhas proved essential in the whole process.
The aim of the project is to improve the access to, and coverage, use and quality of, the services of maternal, reproductive, neonatal and child health care in the indigenous regions of Kuna Yala and Embera-Wounaan, said the Social Protection and Health Division Chief at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Ferdinando Regalia. Through the set of outlined interventions, a great contribution will be made towards the reduction of maternal, neonatal and infant mortality, and towards the reduction of chronic undernutrition. Through these interventions the project is expected to help increase the use of family planning services, as well as the percentage of women receiving prenatal control by trained personnel and the percentage of children that receive a complete pack of supplements and immunization, concluded Regalia.
The resources of the SM2015 Initiative will complement those of the Health Equity Improvement and Services Strengthening Program, which seeks to revamp primary health care and improve maternal, neonatal and chronic diseases care in Panama. The IDB has already carried out a loan of US$50 million to develop this Program, which is expected to increase the number of people served by the national primary care network. Today some 78,000 people in Panama attend this level of health care, and the aim is that the number of annual users in 2016 rises to 184,000 people. In addition, the Program will further improve the quality of the health services with the aim of reducing maternal and infant mortality rates as well as chronic undernutrition among children under the age of five living in the nearby indigenous and rural communities.
The Salud Mesoamérica 2015 Initiative is an innovative public/private partnership among the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carlos Slim Health Institute (ICSS), the Government of Spain and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Its aim is to improve the health of women and of children under five years of age in the poorest populations of the Mesoamerican region through the funding of evidence-based interventions corresponding to the areas of reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health care, including services of immunization, nutrition, strengthening of information systems and training of human resources for the provision of the said interventions.
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