Health and social protection

In support of the national sectoral policy, the Health and Social Protection programme (SEN/031) aims to strengthen the health and social protection system in order to improve the access of the population, in particular the most vulnerable, to high-quality, efficient and equitable health care services.

The programme is aligned with the priorities of the Ministry of Health and Social Action focusing in particular on maternal and child health and the consequences of the epidemiological transition. The main beneficiaries of the programme are pregnant women and women of childbearing age, new-borns, people with chronic diseases, victims of medical and surgical emergencies, and financially and socially vulnerable people.

The intervention zone of the Health and Social Protection Programme of the Senegal-Luxembourg Indicative Cooperation Programme IV covers seven medical regions with a population of approximately 6.9 million Senegalese, i.e. 45% of the Senegalese population.

The programme's interventions focus on four major areas:

• strengthening the provision of services at the level of health districts, with a focus on maternal and neonatal health;
• strengthening the supply of services at hospital level to improve access to emergency and referral services;
• strengthening health insurance and other social protection measures;
• improving sectoral governance.

In line with these areas of intervention, the main priorities of the programme are to:

• strengthen the systems for dealing with emergencies and non-communicable diseases;
• contribute to the professionalisation and expansion of mutual health organisations; and
• strengthen the steering, coordination and management capacities of the national health development plan.

The programme is implemented through:

• budgeted aid, an instrument already developed in the previous cooperation programme within the framework of national execution;  
• operational partnership agreements; and
• direct LuxDev implementation for the mobilisation of expertise, capacity building and partnerships developed with civil society.

Among the main intermediate results achieved, we can mention:

• setting up the medical simulation training centre in emergency care in Dakar;
• setting up call reception and regulation centres in Kaolack and Touba/Diourbel (which are regional branches of the emergency medical services);
• setting up mobile emergency and resuscitation services (granting of 18 medicalised ambulances);
  upgrading the equipment of call reception and regulation centres, resuscitation and emergency services in hospitals and health centres;
• updating and disseminating emergency care protocols in health facilities;
• strengthening capacities of doctors and paramedics by granting training scholarships for university diplomas in emergency medicine and anaesthesia and resuscitation;
• providing ten mobile respirators (as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic); and
• setting up two professional health insurance schemes at departmental level.

It should be noted that programme support for the Abass Ndao Hospital Centre (ANHC) in Dakar, which was not provided for in the initial technical and financial document, has been included in the actions to be carried out for a total amount of EUR 1 000 000. The ANHC was one of the first interventions of the Luxembourg Cooperation in the field of health in Senegal (from 1995).

Over the years, Luxembourg's support for the ANHC has consisted in:  

• the supply of medical equipment essential to its proper functioning;  
• the further training of medical staff;  
• the setting up of a hospital maintenance service; and
• the training of a multidisciplinary maintenance team.

The action introduced in the framework of the SEN/031 Programme provides for support to the ANHC in terms of infrastructure and equipment to strengthen the anaesthesia/resuscitation and operating theatre departments, gastroenterology, cardiology, medical imaging, odontology, ophthalmology and urology-andrology.