Tanzania spends $18m on health

Monday, 24 June 2013 09:45 Kenan Kalagho, EAST AFRICAN BUSINESS WEEK, KAMPALA UGANDA.

DAR ES SALAAM - Tanzania government has spent $18m in improving health and social welfare care initiative in 54 districts country wide.

(Dr Mohamed Ally Mohamed of the Ministry of health, Photo By Kenan Kalagho)This initiative has been made with an aim of managing the national shortage of social and health care staff by making sure that they are retained in their respective rural areas of assignments.
Speaking in Dar es salaam last week during consortium of partners from the USAID, the Director of Health Quality Management Assurance with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare Dr. Mohamed Ally Mohamed said the four year project dubbed Tanzania Human Resource Capacity (THRP) funded by USAID and being overseen by Intra Health International between 2009-2013 was aimed at improving the deployment and retaining of health care workers in the rural areas of Tanzania.
Dr Mohamed who attended on behalf of the Minister of Health and Social Welfare Dr Hussein Mwinyi said that Tanzania was committed to improving the health and well being of all the people in the country and that the THRP project has not only helped the country in strengthening health care at the district level but also improve initiatives on most vulnerable children and enriching program for enrollment of nurses.
He said that the countries development vision of 2025 is to achieve high quality livelihood for the citizens in the country and thus making sure that there is availability of adequate human resource to turn the available resources into the vision is attained.
“We have been faced with Human Resource for Health for almost a decade and it has been a national and global agenda, Dr Mohamed said adding that the country needs to manage the 42% HRH capacity to make sure that health and social care services are delivered to the optimum.
He said that the country’s upcoming fourth National Human Resource strategic plan about to be developed, demonstrates the government commitment in addressing the Human resource challenges which negatively affects the ability to deliver quality health services especially in rural areas.
He also noted that the government needed support of stakeholders in order to make sure that quality service delivery with regards to health care and social welfare around the country is realized.
On her part, the Chief Executive Officer of Benjamin Mkapa Foundation Dr. Ellen Senkoro said that the THRP project has recorded tremendous achievements at improving the deployment and retaining of health care workers in the rural areas of Tanzania in the selected 54 districts countrywide.
Dr Senkoro said that a total of $18m through USAID fund and its partners to implement among others the Human Resource Capacity between 2009 and 2013 of which three districts of Ukelewe, Liwale and Makete emerged the best performers in attracting recruitment of health and social welfare workforce as well as retaining them at their work.
“With these funds in place, we have managed on average in 54 districts to increase retention of health care workers from 76% in 2009 to 91% in 2012” she said adding that there has also been improvement in recruiting processes of health care workers in the country as compared to 2009 before the Human Resource Capacity (HRC) project launch.”
She also noted that the 4 year project has also seen the increase productivity of health and social welfare workforce resulting into decrease of vacancy rate and while increasing the HRM financing from 9% in 2009/10 to 17% in 2012.
Dr Senkoro however noted that there has been lack of strong operational linkages across Ministries that was impending challenges in affective implementation of the project while noting that limited district capacity and authority for institutionalizing and formalizing innovations during project designs.
Speaking on behalf of the 3 recognized districts that had shown an outstanding performance in implementing the HRC project, the District Medical Officer of Makete Dr Hassan Mattaka said that they have managed to train health care staffs and ways on how to retain them in their districts by making sure that health care workers are offered incentives in their work destination which included housing and allowances.
Dr Mattaka said that this district had managed to retain about 67 health care workers last year and also increase the number of health care staff recruitment from 241 in 2009 to 317 in 2013 while noting that there is still a challenge in laboratory technician recruitment.
“The whole of Ukerewe district has one laboratory technician who will be retiring five year from now, Dr Mattaka said adding that there was need to recruit and train more laboratory technicians and x-lay experts to work in the rural areas.”
The districts that were implementing the HRC project included among others Geita, Kwimba, Magu, Mwanza, Sengerema, and Ukerewe in the Lake zones.
Others include Nachingwea, Ruangwa, Liwale, and Makete with the 4 years project being financed by USAID and the funds being overseen by Intra Health International in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Mkapa HIV and Aids and other partners.