 |
||||
| C O N T E N T S
LEARNING CENTER |
Huanuco, Peru: Community Health and Governance
“We know what happens in the health of our community, we walk, we hold meetings,we are interested in them, we give them advice, and we accompany them when they need to go to the health post. ….We are now holding demonstrations [i.e. foodpreparation demonstrations] because when one speaks and speaks, the mothers listen to us but they do not see/understand and sometimes they are distracted. Seeing and doing, they are going to understand better, they get enthusiastic and they are going to do it in their own homes.” --Community Health Agent Since 2002, Futuras Generaciones Peru has been working to strengthen the quality of a national network of community co-managed health facilities or CLAS (Local Community Health Associations). This work has extended to 2,100 health facilities, or one-third of all primary health care facilities, serving over eight million people. Initiated through the consultation and design by Future Generations staff in 1994, CLAS has been described by Dr. Halfdan Mahler, former Director General of the World Health Organization, as one of the world’s most innovative and effective demonstrations of community involvement in primary health care. Through this program, a community-elected board co-manages the income from government transfers, insurance reimbursements, and fees-for-service which, rather than being returned to the regional health office, are reinvested locally to improve health services and support community-identified needs. Regional centers of action learning and experimentation, or Model CLAS, now work to strengthen this system of healthcare on a national level. Futuras Generaciones identifies an exemplary CLAS in a region and provides training, guidance, and technical support to increase community participation and extend health care from the clinic to the home. The Model CLAS strategy is proving to be effective in not only improving the quality of both clinical and home-based health services, but in building partnerships between the poorest community members, health facility staff, municipal and regional government officials, and the Ministry of Health. The Model CLAS strategy is also proving to have region-wide and national impact. This year the Las Moras Model CLAS, established in the Huánuco region received the first place award for quality improvements in health care from the Peruvian Ministry of Health. And, the Regional Ministry of Health has recognized Las Moras as a “Model Center for Integrated Health Care.” The Regional Government has announced plans to scale-up this model through regional-level training with an investment of $3.2 million dollars. The lessons learned from the Las Moras Model CLAS have informed the development of a second series of Model CLAS to improve maternal and child health in 259 rural communities and 27 health facilities in the Cusco region. A third model CLAS, is also being established, in the northern province of La Libertad, and requests for technical assistance are growing. Community Testimonials “Health has improved, now we see fewer cases of children who get sick from diarrhea,before they always came to run and go to the health post. One now makes visits to them, orients them, and the mothers take care of the children. The cases that occur are of new families who come from the highlands to look for work and they have not received training nor do their children have their immunizations.” “For some time now I am familiar with the work that Future Generations is developing in Las Moras, it interested me because it makes the community participate in solving its own problems, first raising the people’s consciousness about it own needs and from that must be born the ideas to solve them and the idea that they can develop themselves.”
|
|||
| RETURN TO TOP | ||||
| All contents of this site © Future Generations, unless otherwise credited |
Contact Information
Future Generations |
|||
 |
|
|
|
|