By Sharon Tawuya
Bulawayo, (New Ziana) -The Ministry of Health and Child Care has tabled a budgetary bid of ZW89.27 billion against the ceiling of 29ZW billion that the Treasury provides, amid calls for the cap to be adjusted to enable it to provide adequate services.
This emerged on Thursday at the on-going pre-Budget Seminar being held in Bulawayo, where the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care called for increased funding for the health sector.
Acting Committee chairperson who is also Ruwa legislator Thomas Muwodzeri, who presented the outcomes from consultations with stakeholders by the Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care, said the ceiling was inadequate and would cripple procurement of medicines, equipment and specialist services.
He said the current health budget has left the country with low availability of tracer medicines, shortage of functional theatres, and concentration of specialist services in Harare and Bulawayo.
The Ministry’s ZWG89 billion bid is meant to cover procurement of essential medicines and sundries, retooling of Central and Provincial hospitals, recruitment and retention of health workers, as well as decentralisation of specialist services.
The Minister of Health and Child Care Dr Douglas Mombeshora said the huge gap between the bid and the ceiling would affect service delivery if not addressed.
Responding to concerns over medicine leakages at government hospitals, Mombeshora said the government is tightening the supply chain from the National Pharmaceutical Company (NatPharm) to health facilities.
He said the Ministry has introduced electronic stock management, audit trails and direct delivery monitoring to ensure public investment in drugs translates into availability at facility level.
“We are accounting for every box that leaves NatPharm,” he said.
On diagnostic services, he said the Treasury has been asked to fund decentralisation of CT Scans to Provincial hospitals so that patients no longer travel hundreds of kilometres to Harare or Bulawayo.
“We want CT scans at provincial level. A patient in Masvingo or Mutare should not travel 300km for a scan,” he said.
The same approach applies to cancer treatment, said Dr Mmombeshora, with the 2027 bid prioritising installation of cancer screening, chemotherapy and radiotherapy machines at Provincial hospitals.
“Patients should not be travelling long distances to access cancer treatment. We need the machines at provincial hospitals,” he said, adding that the government wants to establish at least two more radiotherapy centres outside Central Hospitals.
The Committee welcomed the decentralisation plan, noting that the proportion of tertiary hospitals offering selected services including CT scan, ICU and dialysis remains low at 25 percent against a target of 38 percent.
New Ziana
