THE Community Working Group on Health is optimistic the new Administration will
fulfill health stakeholders’ wishes as highlighted in the National Development
Strategy (NDS1).
In a letter to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the group’s director, Itai Josh
Rusike, said: “Now that the elections are over, the people of Zimbabwe expect the
fulfilment of the election manifesto, in which you promised massive improvement in
health infrastructure; more health personnel; accessible and affordable medicines;
free medical care for cancer patients; at least one hospital per district, improved
health services in resettlement areas, reduction of hospital fees by 50 percent and
pursuing the health-for-all policy, among others.
“We were over the moon when you made very promising pronouncements which
include the National Development Strategy (NDS1), which aimed to make the
country an upper middle income economy by 2030, and the tag line ‘leaving no one
and no place behind’.
“As the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH), we summarise this as
primary health care, (PHC) with clear intentions for the attainment of Universal
Health Coverage (UHC) and therefore the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
which are due in the next seven years, in 2030. It is only a healthy nation that can
deliver an ambitious national development agenda.
“For this reason, the CWGH and its network members would like to urge the
renewed and reinvigorated Government to immediately shift focus to real
developmental issues, particularly taking into account the dire need of improving
health service provision for the benefit of ordinary Zimbabweans as articulated in the
pre-elections.
“It is undeniable that the deplorable state of the country’s health system requires
urgent attention, especially giving priority focus to revitalising the PHC concept and
philosophy that once worked so well and gave Zimbabwe health leadership within
the SADC and beyond in the yesteryear.
“As enshrined and articulated so well in the Nation’s Constitution, (2013) a whole of
Government approach will ensure adequate addressing of the social determinants of
health to achieve UHC, thus enabling every Zimbabwean equitable access to
essential and quality health services without facing financial hardships.
“Zimbabwe in our considered view needs sustained investments in primary health
care to rise up to the occasion and attain the health financing, health governance
and therefore health care delivery goals and so enable the health system to urgently
close the current gaps that presently, health service provision as prescribed by the
World Health Organization’s six building blocks is found wanting within the public
sector which includes central government, local government, the church run and
uniformed forces services.”
This, argues CWGH, compromises access of up to 80 percent of the population that
are served by public health institutions.