Health

Achievements

The delivery of high quality health services is crucial to the development of the Lao PDR, and the past five years have seen significant improvements in this area. The average life expectancy is now 67 years for women, 62 for men. There are four central hospitals, 12 provincial hospitals, four regional hospitals, 127 district hospitals, 820 health centres, and 6,736 hospital beds in the country.

Furthermore, 77% of population have access to safe water source and 54% of population have access to a family latrine. Immunization programs have expanded, and now reach 71% of the population. Public health promotion continues and training of skilled health workers is expanding.

Future directions

Accelerated efforts are needed to reach Maternal Mortality targets. To address this, the Government has developed an integrated package of essential services including nutrition for mother and children, as well the reintroduction midwives as skilled birth attendants. Additionally, disease prevention services must be scaled up.

The Government is undertaking significant work to improve health indicators in the Lao PDR, including the establishment of the Health Sector Working Group, the Development of the National Health Information System Strategic Plan 2009-2015, implementation of the National Nutrition Strategy, and the Strategic and Planning Framework for Integrated Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health Services 2009-2015.

Work is continuing on the development of a national health financing strategy, and the National Strategy for Rural Water Supply and Environmental Health is under revision.

Future targets and priority measures

Objectives include to: create basic health infrastructure, extend the health system in synergy with the rapid industrialization and modernization of the country, contribute to poverty eradication and improve the people’s quality of life.

Targets include:

  • Infant mortality:45/100,000 live births
  • Children under 5 mortality:70/100,000 live births
  • Maternal mortality: 260/100,000 live births
  • Life expectancy: 64 years
  • Access to safe water: 80%
  • Access to family latrine: 60%

Priority measures to achieve these targets will include :

  • Strong promotion and expansion of Model Healthy Villages (HSS, WES, ICE)
  • Reduce maternal and neonatal mortality and aggressively increase child survival rates
  • Strongly promote good nutrition combined with disaster management
  • Communicable disease control and pandemic
  • Improve Human Resource Development and increase service quality
  • Traditional medicine, food and drug quality
  • Organizational improvement—mechanisms, legislation and planning
  • Sustainable health financing and efficient mobilization and utilization of external resources.
  • Promotion of integrated health mechanisms in line with the Vientiane Declaration