Health PPPs mooted

Masvingo Bureau
Government is mulling introducing public-private partnerships to rehabilitate and re-equip state-owned hospitals as most of them have deteriorated and are poorly equipped owing to years of underfunding. Health and Child Care Deputy Minister Dr Paul Chimedza said on Friday that Government was concerned with the state of most Government-owned hospitals which he said were in urgent need of rehabilitation.

He said Government did not have the capacity to adequately fund the rehabilitation of public hospitals, saying the introduction of the public-private partnerships was one of the ways being considered to attract funding into the health sector.

“Government is concerned with the state of its hospitals throughout the country which have been affected by inadequate funding over the past decade owing to illegal sanctions,” said Dr Chimedza.

“So, we are considering strategies like introducing private-public partnerships to attract funding into the health sector. We could invite a private player to rehabilitate a hospital and then allow the investor to operate one of the wings at the hospital for a certain period of time to enable the investor to recoup their investment. We need funding in the health sector.’’