Secondary Health Care is the specialist treatment and support provided by doctors and other health professionals for patients who have been referred to them for specific expert care, most often provided in hospitals.

Usually, patients are referred from primary healthcare centres to hospitals when local health staff lack the knowledge, resources or specialisation to treat them. Secondary healthcare includes a wide range of specialists, such as psychiatrists, cardiologists, obstetricians, dermatologists, paediatricians and gynaecologists.

International Medical Corps provides Secondary Health Care to tens of thousands of people in a range of challenging and low resource environments around the world. We support visits from experts in key areas of health to primary health care centres where there is an identified need, and when access to hospitals is difficult or impossible. We work in hospitals where the local systems lack resources to provide adequate care. We also work to improve the capacity of secondary healthcare professionals through training, continuing education and support. This saves lives in the short term, but also ensures that the skills and knowledge needed to operate a functioning health care system are developed and kept within communities.

Some examples of the type of support we provide through our Secondary Health Care programmes include emergency obstetric care to women suffering from complicated labour; supporting psychiatric hospitals to treat and manage patients; working with governments to improve hospital management; training of specialist medical professionals and providing medication and pharmaceuticals to hospitals and health clinics.