Effectiveness in primary healthcare in Peru

Abstract

Healthcare in the community of Las Moras in Huánuco, Peru, consisted of a poorly equipped one-room health post staffed by an auxiliary nurse and visited by few patients. Then in 1994 the primary healthcare facility in Las Moras and about 250 others throughout the country were incorporated into a new government-community partnership for the delivery, management, financing, and monitoring of primary healthcare services, called the Shared Administration Program. The program formed committees of locally elected community members, called “Comunidades Locales de Administración de Salud” (CLAS), into private non-profit associations to collaboratively manage government funds for primary healthcare services. This gave communities not just a voice in priority-setting and oversight, but also direct control over public funds for expenditures on infrastructure, equipment, and human resources. Since the inception of CLAS, Future Generations, a private non-profit organization, has worked with the government, civil society, and local communities to design the CLAS system and build the capacity of communities to thrive within the CLAS framework.