The Ministry of Health, which is the Government organ responsible for the concept, regulation, execution and evaluation of policies defined by the Council of Ministries, for the health area and pharmaceutical activities, is confronted daily with challenges regarding the quality of the health services rendered.

In a short to medium term perspective, the concerns are centred in the improvement of access to health. This is a crucial aspect and has to be faced in its several slopes. We can talk, for example, of basic infrastructure level necessary for the primary, secondary and tertiary health care. Development and improvement of the human resources necessary for the provision of these services is another issue to take into account side by side with access to medicine, materials and equipments essential for diagnostics and of support to the work done by the health professionals. The distribution of medicine is more controlled to guarantee it arrives to all the districts in quantity and within the expiry date.

According to the National Health Strategic Plan, it is intended to develop the necessary human resources to guarantee a minimum of one doctor, two nurses and one laboratory technician in each Suco with two thousand habitants. If the existing vacancies in the Health Posts are filled, the access and the quality of the services to the communities improve significantly. Until the necessary minimum numbers are reached, the SISCa program continues to be fully implemented in the rural areas.

One concern from the Ministry of Health is, naturally, to be able to equip all the health establishments, maternities, health centres and hospitals, with all the basic equipments and materials necessary for a quality service.

All the measures that the Ministry of Health intends to carry out have the objective of promoting healthy habits, to prevent diseases, cure them and rehabilitate the patients.