The health sector in El Salvador is made up of two subsectors: public and private. The last two governments have made efforts to turn the predominant organizational structure into the public subsector (centralized model with a bureaucratic/professional organization) in a modern structure in terms of organization and management, deconcentrated and decentralized with regard to service provision and administration. The profitable private subsector institutions maintain the business model, which is dominated by private professional practice. In the private nonprofit sector, there is a trend of forming nongovernmental organizations that work with external financing, public subsidies, or private funds in specific territorial areas or in limited topics. In 1996, a Sectoral Modernization Plan was proposed to be carried out in three phases.

Health System Profile of El Salvador

The second edition of the Profile was prepared by a group of 12 professionals and national political decision-makers from the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare, the faculty of the UES Medical School and Master’s Program in Public Health, the Intersectoral Group for Human Resources Development in Health Care, and the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization. Technical assistance was also provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Cooperation Agency of the Federal Republic of Germany (GTZ) and the country office of the Inter-American Development Bank in El Salvador. The PAHO/WHO Representative Office in El Salvador was in charge of technical coordination of the National Group. The external review was entrusted to the Office of the Director of the Master’s Degree Program in Public Health at the Universidad Centroamericana “José Simón Cañas.” Final review, edition, and translation are the responsibility of the Health Systems and Policies Unit, PAHO/WHO, Washington, DC.

Link to El Salvador Ministry of Health
Link to PAHO/WHO country office in El Salvador