Plans to hire experts for health centres mulled

 

THE shortage of staff in the health sector in the country has reached 48 per cent, with the government announcing yesterday that it will soon hire experts to bridge the gap.

The Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, the Elderly and Children, Ms Ummy Mwalimu, said here yesterday that as President John Magufuli had recently lifted ban on employment in the public service, they were considering hiring more staff. 

 

President Magufuli had previously suspended employment in public service to give room for the government to weed out phantom workers in the payroll.

Responding to a supplementary question by Ms Hawa Ghasia (Mtwara Rural-CCM), the minister said the country was in dire shortage of health workers, assuring MPS, however, that the government will soon hire workers to be posted in the needy regions.

Ms Ghasia said that although there were several health centres built in collaboration between the government and the people in her constituency, they lacked staff, hence denying the people reliable access to medical services.

The minister also directed all regional administrative secretaries in the country to make sure that they effect redistribution of health workers as some areas have many workers while others did not have.

“All regional administrative secretaries must redistribute health workers and ensure every centre has staff. It’s normal to find even more than five workers in one centre while other centres have none,” she pointed out.

Ms Mwalimu further said that in the next three years, number of health centres in the country is expected to hit 500 -- a deliberate move aimed at improving health services.

She noted that as the government is currently eyeing suitable financing for the health sector, much focus is to ensure that all women, elders and children under five get health insurance.

The minister affirmed that nearly 60 per cent of people seeking medical services are those who are supposed to get free treatment, posing a big challenge to the government to serve them effectively.

“To ensure that we properly treat this group, we will ensure that we provide them all with health insurance, this will help reduce unnecessary failings likely to occur in the course of serving them,” she said.

Earlier, the Deputy Minister, Dr Hamis Kingwangalla, said the government plans to distribute delivery packs to 500 women in the country to make them give births in a favourable environment.