EDITORIAL COMMENT: Treasury must give hospitals first priority

22 Mar, 2015 - 14:03 0 Views
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Treasury must give hospitals first priority

The Sunday News

The scramble for limited resources from Treasury by different Government arms has led to complaints and accusations over the distribution of funds meant to support service provision. This has been seen in many ministries with quite a number of institutions all seeking to dip their fingers into the same pot. Granted, the Government faces its own funding constraints that have led to the formulation of new funding models that seek a greater involvement by the private sector in areas hitherto seen as a Government preserve.

Elsewhere in this edition we carry an article on the challenges being faced by central hospitals most of which need about $1 million monthly to operate effectively though they get far less than that despite making their requirements known to Treasury. Such is the situation across all sectors.

However, we believe the health sector is quite crucial and that the hospitals should get all the support they can get especially when it comes to setting priorities so that our people do not succumb to diseases unnecessarily.

It is our view that Treasury should ensure that hospitals are supported to ensure acceptable service to the public especially now that ministries shall soon be launching their service charters that will give us a guide on the kind of service we can expect from different institutions.

Making such a commitment in terms of service provision is a bold move that should be supported by equally bold measures that ensure that this paucity of resources is addressed and where innovation is required such should be deployed for the benefit of all. While we sympathise with officials running health institutions due to the pressure they are under to provide quality services against declining financial support, we also would like to challenge them to adapt to the prevailing environment and seek new administration models that rope in more stakeholders to ensure that hospitals do not grind to a halt.

We are aware of the intermittent shutdowns of some sections in major hospitals caused by a lack of consumables and the like but believe administrators should be able to find a way even as we prod Treasury to treat hospitals as a priority.

We believe a healthy nation is a productive nation. It is our view that the economic turnaround programme, Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation can only be driven by a healthy populace hence our feeling that our health institutions should get all the support so that the nation’s health is safeguarded.

The different central hospitals are affected to different levels by the shortage of resources and we applaud the resilience of the institutions and the innovation of some of the administrators. It is our view that success stories should be shared among the hospitals so that new ways of improving health provision are explored despite the mounting challenges.

If Chitungwiza Central Hospital can do it, we believe the other hospitals can also fashion their own models that ensure improved service without necessarily milking patients dry. The introduction of private wards appears to be one route that hospitals have taken to raise money and it is our hope that these wards will not be looked after at the expense of the general wards. Also, while involving the private sector through partnerships with health institutions is a good idea, care should be taken that such relationships do not blur ethical lines especially when it comes to awarding of tenders for the supply of materials or service provision at such institutions.

What is paramount though, is that patients need quality service and that all possible means have to be sought to achieve that hence the challenge on administrators and policymakers to seek new ways to keep our hospitals running.

We appreciate their work so far but we believe they can still do much more. We wait with bated breath for their service charters and hope that such statements of intent shall be backed by resources to satisfy the needs of the clients, the generality of patients across the country.

Share This:

Survey


We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey

This will close in 20 seconds