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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke-Senior Health Reporter
More Government funds must be committed towards financing the health sector to reduce over-reliance on donor funding, strengthen health delivery systems and curb the loss of trained professionals as part of progress towards achieving universal health coverage.
Speaking during a high level policy dialogue on health care financing yesterday, acting Minister of Health and Child Care Professor Amon Murwira said the Government was looking at gaining efficiency from the existing resources by strengthening systems and governance of public resources in the health sector.
The brain drain had a significant impact on healthcare delivery hence the need to direct financing towards the welfare of health workers.
“We are spending the little money we have on training professionals while others are just waiting to harness that,” said Prof Murwira.
“We are spending an average of US$76 000 in training a doctor in this country per year. After we do that, our doctors are actually taken by other health systems.”
He said while the country could not stop professionals from migrating, there was need for international systems to take cognisance of efforts made by countries in the training of health professionals when recruiting, to allow for ploughing back into the health sector of the country of origin.
Government recently announced plans to increase non-monetary incentives such as accommodation, transport and vehicle loans for health workers in a move to curtail brain drain which has hit the sector.
Prof Murwira said efforts to start improving the welfare of the available healthcare workers were already underway while plans to increase the workforce were also on course.
“We have tried to improve not only monetary benefits, but also quality of life to see that workers in the health sector have the best infrastructure at home and at work,” he said.
“In trying to improve the availability of human resources despite the constraints, we are increasing the number of medical training schools. We will be opening a medical school at Great Zimbabwe University by the end of 2022.”
To improve availability of medicines and commodities, Prof Murwira said the Ministry of Health and Child Care was looking forward to local production of medicines through research, development and innovation as well as increasing capacity of the pharmaceutical industry in line with the National Development Strategy 1.
Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Development Clemence Chiduwa said health budgeting in the country was guided by the policy trajectory through the NDS1, hence Treasury was looking to increase funding towards the sector.
Zimbabwe is a signatory to the Abuja declaration, where countries pledged to allocate at least 15 percent of their annual budgets towards their health sector.
Zimbabwe is approaching that figure and the health sector is already amongst the highest-funded social sectors in the national budget.
“The resources towards the health sector have been steadily increasing over the years,” said Prof Murwira.
“Under the NDS1, our target is to achieve at least 30 percent. Government is committed to ensure that we meet the obligation on health notwithstanding the challenges that we have as a country. We have taken a deliberate position to focus on primary health care.
“Zimbabwe is committed to providing enough resources in the health sector. We cannot leave the health of this country to the donor sector. Let us ensure that the long term policy trajectory is for us to minimise dependency.”
UNICEF global health director Mr Aboubacar Kampo commended the country on its efforts to direct more funding towards healthcare.
He said the Aids Levy was a good initiative which could be expanded to cover other diseases and transform healthcare delivery.
Mr Kampo said the Covid-19 pandemic had taught countries to draw from their national budgets to fund health care systems during pandemics.
Zimbabwe is among the African countries that have channelled a lot of funds towards the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines and rollout of vaccination programmes.
Online Reporter