State health institutions have undergone different stages of evolution throughout the history of Panamanian public health.  

The pre-Republican era (before 1903) was characterized by greater environmental dominance over humans, who thus paid an enormous price in diseases that are now preventable, such as yellow fever, malaria, smallpox, and typhoid. There was a lack of scientific techniques for organizing attacks on the most important ecological factors.

In the early years of the Republic's independence (1903-1914), limited health care efforts were directed by a Public Hygiene and Charity Section and a Donations Section of the Public Works Department of the Ministry of Development. This period was characterized by human domination of the environment with the construction of the Panama Canal. However, there is still a marked lack of organized Preventive Medicine and Public Health in the rest of the country, with the exception of limited patient care in the few existing hospitals and limited attention to public hygiene.

The years following this period (1914-1929) were characterized by the development of the first cooperative program with the Rockefeller Foundation, giving rise to the creation of the Hookworm Prevention Department as part of the Ministry of Public Works, as part of a major campaign against this disease with an emphasis on soil sanitation activities. It was during this period that, through Executive Decree No. 46 of 1919, funds were allocated for the construction of Santo Tomás Hospital

• General Medicine

• Emergency Care

• Maternal and Child Health

• Preventive Medicine

• Basic Surgery

• Outpatient Services

• Diagnostic Services (basic laboratory and imaging)

As a regional public hospital, Hospital Regional El Real adheres to the national standards set by Panama’s Ministry of Health. The hospital focuses on providing accessible, quality care with an emphasis on preventive medicine and addressing the needs of vulnerable and rural populations

Vision
“CHANGE IN HEALTH, A COMMITMENT FOR ALL”

Mission
To guarantee the entire population, with a gender perspective, access to comprehensive care, through public health services, humanized at all levels of intervention, based on the primary care strategy, and the development of the functions of leadership, management and transformation, privileging equity, efficiency and quality with warmth during care, ensuring transparency in the use of resources and the development of health actions with citizen participation, in the construction of the necessary conditions for the social production of health.