RETS - Rede Internacional de Educação de Técnicos em Saúde

The Cape Verdean Government clearly defined a prospective vision of the NHS in both the Government Program and the National Health Policy and the National Health Development Plan. With 2020 as the horizon, the strategy is based on the will to guarantee the health of the population. To this end, the goal has been to build a favorable socioeconomic context, a universally accessible, effective and equitable national health service.
This vision, which was sought to be shared by a significant part of the population, is based on three main dimensions: the universal accessibility of citizens and residents in Cape Verde to the National Health System, the efficiency of services provided and equity in terms of access. Likewise, it is assumed as a condition of success the favorable financing that allows the mobilization of resources for the NHS. From this, the State recognizes health as an integral part of a more comprehensive totality: the development of the country.
In a fast-moving territory of demographic and epidemiological transition, in which communicable diseases cohabit with noncommunicable chronic diseases, the NHS is permanently strong. However, both the PNS and the National Sanitary Development Plan - which is in the process of being finalized and adopted by the government - seek to concretize the formulation of specific programs that take into account, in particular, the archipelagic condition of the country.
According to a study by the Regional Office for Africa (WHO) in 2008, the NHS has clear and functional mechanisms for monitoring and monitoring the responsibilities of the various health actors. Internal accountability mechanisms, associated with external structures, ensure oversight of the application of financial and administrative rules and regulations of the system. In fact, most of the existing mechanisms are aimed at overseeing the public sector, which at the moment is largely hegemonic. However, the opening of the health sector to private activity imposes the need to define, fine-tune and schedule the control of private health activity.
The SNS is supported by the State and by the taxpayers. The System guarantees the access of the whole population to primary health care. In addition, it comprises a network of Health Offices, Health Centers, Regional Hospitals and Central Hospital. From 2005 to 2009, the Ministry of Health built 19 Health Centers: three in the City of Praia (with a forecast of five more by the end of 2009), two in S. Vicente and in each Health Police Station (with the exception of those where Regional Hospitals).
In Cape Verde, indicators of maternal, neonatal and child health, general mortality, among others, are increasing, placing the country among the best in the ranking of African countries. A direct measure for this decline was the prioritization of the elimination of mother-to-child vertical HIV transmission, which has led to the country's leadership in combating new HIV infections in children in West and Central Africa.