Health Response Strategy (HRS) maintaining Health Security, preserving Population Health and saving Children and Women Lives.

This sectoral Strategy is a national wide document aiming to two interdependent strategic objectives: (i) respond to the essential health needs (primary, secondary and tertiary care) of the displaced Syrians and host community; and (ii) strengthen national institutions and capacities to enhance the resilience of the health system, prioritizing the most vulnerable. Main goals to be reached are identified as: (i) improve host and displaced population general health status; (ii) support health system resilience and further development; (iii) promote child and youth health at all levels of health system and across all sectors; and (iv) develop and maintain health security. Primary actions to reach these goals are: (i) enhancement of primary healthcare network and collaboration with public hospitals through a well-defined referral system; (ii) creation of a Geographic Information System (GIS) maps villages in order to include new centers to progressively cover all the Lebanese territory; (iii) strengthening the healthcare institutions - Primary Health Care Centers (PHCCs) and hospitals -and enable them to withstand the pressure caused by the increased demand on services and the scarcity of resources, in particular after the humanitarian crisis due to the high number if Syrian refugees; (iv) prevention and control of outbreaks of epidemic-prone diseases with focus on EWARS reinforcement which is the Early Warning system at the Ministry of Public Health; (v) the youth health initiative will be developed and implemented, including expansion of school health data base and health awareness and education programs in public schools. The Strategy provides also budget information for the various sectors involved.
As for the Governance, the Strategy points out the importance of enhancing the leadership of the Ministry of Public Health and adopt a participatory approach with all concerned stakeholder, together with a decentralization process to increase the role of municipalities in planning and implementation. It is also established that the performance of the health sector will be assessed by the Health Steering Committee, based on a series of operational objectives, including arrangement of financial resources, transparency and accountability of all partners, quality of health services, achievements of the health system and institutional resilience.