Secretariat of Health and JICA offer new model for Nursing Service

A group of 14 nurses, trained in the Project of Strengthening Basic and Permanent Education of Nursing, named Project ANGELES, have embarked upon a mission to integrating a standardized nursing model on a national level.

The project, supported by the Secretariat of Health and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), at a cost of $2.5 million USD, seeks to improve the nursing service model involving not only nurses at a teaching level, but also those operating in hospitals and communities. Project ANGELES’ National Coordinator, Leslie Lopez said that the project is based on the need to update the following components: the integration of teaching and service, community service, and the nursing process.

Lopez said that “the operating process of the policies that the Secretariat of Health pushes forward, impact in various ways, because each area in the country has different needs; therefore, strategies vary according to the area where the service is provided.” This, according to Lopez, creates a lag between nurses at the community and hospital level. “We are too dispersed,” Lopez says. She adds that due to this lag, the government is forced to sacrifice public funds into aiding a hospitalized patient; funds that could be saved considering the patient could have been treated at the community level in a preventive manner. Therefore, the Project’s dynamics will be strengthening nurses’ training in order to provide quality national health services, improving the integration mechanisms of health service nationwide. “If we improve our service in the communities, hospitals won’t be so overloaded (with patients); hence, hospital service will become more affordable for the state, and integral to the patient.”

Currently, nurses of the core group consisting of 14 professionals will train six nurses for each component, creating a new combined group of 32 professionals. This new group will execute the model in the pilot department, Francisco Morazan. The model, which is intended to be replicated at a national level, will be complemented with the elaboration of a Didactic Plan, a document designed to regulate the methodology of the nursing service model taught at the Project’s workshops.

Nonetheless, Lopez recognizes obstacles towards achieving results. “Besides being overloaded with work, one nurse for every 10,000 patients, it’s necessary to assure the political and financial support for the project,” Lopez says. However, she states Secretary of Health, Dr. Carlos Aguilar, has confirmed his support of the Project’s execution and sustainability. Also, Lopez says there is a strong possibility for Project ANGELES to be incorporated into the Secretariat’s budget.

ANGELES, a regional project, also operates in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Dominican Republic. Its main objective is to improve the quality of Nursing Education in Central America and the Caribbean.