Planning for Health Services in El Salvador: Need & Demand

Case Analysis

FULLANTE, Ma. Khristine Abelinde January 24, 2011

11088230 Health Economics

The case “Planning for Health Services in El Salvador: Need & Demand”
illustrates the role of socioeconomic and cultural factors in determining the health status
of El Salvador. It clearly illustrate that Salvadorans experience differences on how to
manage and control the widespread of diseases. It is common for developing countries,
like El Salvador, to have very poor health indicators with high proportions of death.
These are attributed to the lack of livelihood, illiteracy, and poor access to health
services. The poor also lack food security, income stability, access to clean water, and
proper sanitation (Simwaka, and et.al, 2006).
Grossman (1972) as cited in Folland, Goodman,& Stano, 1993, explained the
demand for health and health care. He adapted the Human Capital Theory to explain
several insights about people’s health demand. One part of his explanation stated that
“The consumer does not merely purchase health passively from the market, but instead
produces it, spending time on health-improving efforts in addition to purchasing medical
inputs.” (Folland & et. al, 1993). People invest time and money to attain quality health
services. Therefore, it is also important that health service providers should give their
best to serve their clients if they also demand for higher revenues and increase service
price.
Social factors including the effect of poverty are accounted to the burden of
infectious diseases in El Salvador. Poor people and the disadvantaged groups suffer
more illness and die sooner than the privileged. They are more exposed to many health
threats and are much less likely to receive adequate care (John and et.al, 2010).
Likewise, education, as an important indicator of economic status, comes into the
picture. People with low level of education tend to be at risk because of lack of
knowledge on how to prevent the infectious disease. It also contributes to their limited
access to information, thus, they tend to be poorly informed about their health. As a
result, people with low educational attainment fail to recognize the importance of
seeking health care. Therefore, the government should also make a way to increase
budget for education.
In addition, the health system should serve its best to the most vulnerable
population. Gender roles also influence the control of resources on seeking health care.
As we all know, patterns of health and illness in women and men show differences. Men
and women experience different risks that stem from their biological differences as well
as their different social and economic and cultural roles. Therefore, health care services
need to be gender sensitive. Furthermore, in terms of access to resources, it is
identified that many people come from remote areas. They have neither sources nor
available facilities for treatment.
The case of El Salvador showed to us that there are a lot of barriers to have a
detailed understanding of how people in this community respond to ill-health. It also
provided us the importance of an intelligent and strategic plan for achieving universal
health care. It is important that a range of policies in controlling the burden of seeking
health care should be formulated to address the needs of both men and women. In
order to attain efficient and effective health care system in a country, policy makers
must also look at other social determinants of health. Prioritizing preventive aspects is
the most important in planning for health service. For instance, in the case of El
Salvador, the government should prioritize plan of action on how to expand coverage of
health programs to rural areas, formulating policies for wide health insurance coverage
for people in the lower class, as well as formulating plans that will provide each health
service centers with high-quality and modern health facilities (Overhold & et.al, 1996).

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References:

Overholt & Saunders. (1996). Policy Choices & Practical Problems in Health
Economics. World Bank.

Folland, Goodman, Stano. (1993). The Economics of Health and Health Care. New
York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

John, Jacob, Vipin Vashishtha, et. al (2010). Tuberculosis Control Must Be

Scientifically Defined & Soundly Designed. India: Department of Medicine
Christian Medical College, Vellore. Retrieved from
http://icmr.nic.in/ijmr/2010/july/0701.pdf on July 25, 2010.
Simwaka, Bertha, Ireen Makwiza, et. al. (2006). Vulnerability, access to health
services, and impact: a gender lens on TB, HIV and Malaria in Malawi.UK:
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Retrieved from
http://ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/viewFile/10901/37695 on July 27, 2010.