Bold steps to address health sector challenges
ZIMBABWE has taken bold steps to address some of the challenges that have been affecting the health sector workforce in a bid to achieve some of the targets outlined in the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) of providing access to health for all.
The country’s health sector has over the past years experienced some shocks that have resulted in a mass exodus of workers in the health sector to developed countries leaving the sector struggling to provide adequate health care for citizens.
To address these and other challenges, the Health Service Board (HSB) and the Ministry of Health and Child Care with technical and financial support from the World Health Organisation this year embarked on a comprehensive study of the country’s workforce to identify existing gaps and ways of bridging them.
The Health Labour Market Analysis (HLMA), is a tool being used by countries worldwide to assess the impact of policies, regulations, and financial and non-financial incentives that determine supply and demand decisions, including the geographic distribution and skills mix of health workers.
Addressing stakeholders at a HLMA Zimbabwe validation workshop held here yesterday, HSB executive chairman Dr Paulinus Sikosana said the results of the study would guide the development of the country’s revised Human Resource for Health (HRH) policy as well as the HRH development plan for 2022.
He said it would also be used to lobby for posts and fiscal support from the Treasury towards HRH initiatives for the public health sector.
“This Comprehensive HLMA that you are about to review and validate is a product of thorough research and consultation and provides key and far-reaching recommendations on the way forward for the Zimbabwe Health Sector. The focus of the Health Service Board is to base its contribution towards the attainment of Vision 2030 on evidence and persistently planning and working towards achievement of health sector goals as prescribed in the NDS1 (2021 – 2025),” he said.
He said the HRH Strategy, into which the HLMA feeds, would effectively address the needs, demands, concerns and challenges currently confronting the health sector.
Dr Sikosana said the implementation of the recommendations of the HLMA required Government, the private health sector and health development partners to work together to strengthen the Zimbabwean health system for the common good of Zimbabweans in line with the initiative to offer first class health service to the population.
Zimbabwe last year completed a partial
HLMA targeting specialist medical and nursing workers and the findings and recommendations were used to expand the study to include all health workers.
WHO health systems strengthening unit representative Dr Stanley Midzi said the HLMA was an efficient way to address the needs of the health sector in terms of staff demand and supply.
“The HLMA was looking at the supply side of health workers, which is the education and training of staff as well as the demand side, which looks at how much the Government through the HSB and private sector, can absorb them into the system. It also looks at the willingness of the workforce in the market to take up the positions on offer based on the conditions of service as well as other factors. It is an important tool which is being used in a number of countries in the African region and globally,” he said.
Zimbabwe becomes the seventh country in Africa after Kenya, Ethiopia, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswathini and Tanzania to adopt the use of the HLMA.
Dr Midzi said the WHO would continue supporting the country in the market study which would help in addressing the challenges being faced.
In line with the Government’s vision 2030 for an upper-middle-income society, the country has to attain 80 percent universal health coverage to achieve the status. However, Zimbabwe is currently at 55 percent, though relatively higher than other countries in the region.
HSB general manager human resources Ms Nornah Zhou said there was a need to push the target of attaining universal health coverage and the HLMA would assist in addressing some of the factors hindering that.
She said the study had provided detailed insight into workforce stock and densities,
training capacity, health workforce migration, salaries and income, need versus supply of specialist health workforce and annual training requirements.
“It also provided feasible targets for investing in the specialist health workforce, recommendations on fiscal and financial space for the health workforce, and estimated cost of meeting future health workforce supply and needs,” she said.
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the country experienced a mass exodus of health workers to high income countries and the study sought to explore the nature and drivers of the staff attrition.
“The HLMA also aimed to develop policy recommendations with regards to the production, inflows and outflows, misdistribution and inefficiencies, and regulation in Zimbabwe as well as guide the MoHCC to develop a comprehensive Manpower Development Plan,” said Ms Zhou.