In a bid to facilitate the Big Results Now (BRN)
initiative, the government has praised various steps being undertaken by the
Ministry of Health and Social Services towards the improvement of the development
quality on primary healthcare program which was first initiated in the country
in 2007. To facilitate the activities under the program, the government had increased
the budget of the Ministry of Health from Sh. 271bn/- during 2005/06 fiscal
year, to currently Sh. 1.4 trillion with a view to ensure that, healthcare activities
are brought closer to the majority of the people especially in rural areas. The
Vice-President Dr. Mohammed Gharib Bilal made the remarks last week in Dar es
Salaam at the official opening of the fourth national quality improvement forum
which is spearheaded by the Health ministry in collaboration with private
health sectors in the country. He said in a pursuit of this mission, investment
in the health sector is of utmost importance an aspect that it would enable to accelerate the provision
of primary healthcare services for all for the sake of attaining universal
health coverage. Elaborating more, Dr. Bilal noted that the programme is
focusing more on strengthening of the health systems and referral systems,
construction and rehabilitation of health facilities, human resource development,
and improvement of provision of medicines and medical equipment and supplies. He
noted that through the programme, up to now the government has managed to build
249 hospitals, 716 health centres and 5,960 dispensaries. All of these
facilities are workable to facilitate healthcare development services to the
people in various parts in the country. In addition to that, he noted that, the
government has equipped most of its hospitals with modern State-of-the-art
equipment to be used in medical test, expansion of training intake of Doctors
from 520 in 2005 to 1,057 in 2014, and nurses from 1,586 in 2005 to 3,569 in
2014. “With this massive expansion, we have managed to close the gap of
accessibility to health services as revealed by many indicators, such as
increase of pregnant women attending clinic and those who give birth in health
centres” he said.
Going on its fourth time, the yesterday’s occasion had a
theme which was under the title, “Achieving
Quality of Health and Social Welfare Services by Applying Data” was
climaxed by showcasing various facilities used for advocating healthcare
program activities in the country, the occasion which started on Thursday this
week ended yesterday and involved various stakeholders of the healthcare
industry. On his part, the Minister for Health and Social Welfare Dr. Seif
Seleman Rashid noted on his introductory speech that, his ministry had
initiated a yearly program whereby health stakeholders meet together to share
experiences and practices on how best they could improve the quality of health
services in the country. He said the move is a testimony of unwavering
commitment to ensuring that Tanzanians receive quality health services and
other better medical services for their lives as the need is emphasized. He
earlier thanked the Vice-President to have officiated the event and which later
on issued awards of appreciations to the winning health institutions which
performed the programme well for the last one year to the best of their
knowledge required.
“The awards are in line with the Ministry of Health
initiative of honoring various health institutions that have done exceptionally
well in quality improvement initiatives as the guidelines in the programme
stipulates”, he said. The institutions
that received the awards are the Mbeya Referral Hospital for good performance
in 5S-KAIZEN-TQM approach, Coast and Dodoma regional hospitals for safe care
accreditation approach in public health facilities. Others are KCMC and Bugando
referral hospitals for achieving level 1 of IPC. Meanwhile, the Ministry of
Health and Social Welfare is committed to continue organizing the forum on
yearly basis and recognizing those who have worked hard in contributing to improvement
of quality of health services in the country.
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