Honduras Honduras Profile 2012

Social safety nets and public programs to reduce poverty exist but are insufficient. Private health care and old age insurance are accessible only to a very small segment of the population. All formal employees in regions where the Honduran Institute for Social Security (IHSS) offers services (Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula and some other cities) are covered by the IHSS health care system. However, this does not cover workers in the informal sector or peasants in subsistence farming. According to IHSS data, in 2007 it offered health care services to only 17.78% of the total population (20.76% of the economically active population), and to a similar proportion in terms of old age pensions and other services. Services even for those included in the IHSS system are insufficient. For the 80% of the population without coverage, free public health care exists in theory in the form of state-run hospitals and medical clinics. But given the low level of geographical coverage and the very limited range of services offered, the majority of the population has no practical access to comprehensive health care. In 2007 and 2008, the public health care system was further weakened by continuous strikes on the part of medical and nursing staff.