|
|
Namibia: Health Ministry Meets to Spruce Up Image
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
New Era (Windhoek)
7 February 2008
Posted to the web 7 February 2008
Petronella Sibeene
Otjiwarongo
A high-level Ministerial Management Committee meeting of the Ministry of Health and Social Services started here yesterday with the aim to address critical issues that have put the ministry in the spotlight in the past few years.
During the past two years, the ministry faced criticism related to poor performance, wrong attitude of nursing staff towards the people they ought to serve and non-functionality of facilities, among others. Some of the main factors cited as contributing to unsatisfactory service
delivery in the health sector are shortage of health professionals, old medical equipment and lack of transport.
Minister of Health and Social Services, Richard Kamwi, in a peppery 23-page statement said "now hard-work and service delivery" shall be the slogan of the ministry. Participants comprise 13 regional health directors and other managers in the ministry.
Permanent secretary in the ministry, Kahijoro Kahuure, said the meeting would set the tone on the path the ministry will take from now onwards.
"The ministry has been in the spotlight for long and it cannot continue to be 'business as usual'. We need to work in such a way that these criticisms are erased," he said.
Kahuure disclosed that since the last meeting held last year, all decisions taken for implementation lag behind.
He stressed that the ministry should unearth its own failures and work towards increasing the pace of the ministry's exertions at all levels if it is to achieve its set goals. "Some staff have been in the ministry for years and yet they fail to implement programmes," he bemoaned.
The PS urged regional health directors to come up with working brigades, identify critical issues of concern, and tackle them head-on. He expressed concern over the lack of ability of most ministry officials to set
targets and work towards achieving them, adding that this has contributed largely to poor performance at different levels.
The ministry is among the few that have failed to submit performance management reports to the Office of the Prime Minister for their work to be assessed.
"By the end of this year things should be different. Let us focus and ensure that decisions taken here are put into practice," Kahuure told the delegates at the meeting. In the same vein, Kamwi urged his staff to ensure that the Ministry's strategic plan meets the deadline set for March. He said there is no room for indecision.
He stated that the time has come for staff to learn to effectively communicate and share information.
"Without timely, efficient and continuous communication and information sharing among management, this ministry will not function well," he said.
Head office will ensure that communication remains open and information flows freely to the regions and vice-versa, the minister told the meeting.
Other measures to be implemented will be quarterly progress reports to the headquarters by regional directors. The move, the minister said, will enable
the headquarters to support the regions and enable them to chart progress.
"I hope all of us are united in our resolve to serve the people of Namibia to the utmost of our abilities. Let us make 2008 a year of excellent, efficient and timely service delivery," the minister said.
The meeting will come up with ways in which the Third National Development Plan (NDP3) will be implemented in the ministry for the next five years.
Kamwi says the meeting will create a platform to address the content of the document that provides the framework and detailed courses of action towards achieving Vision 2030.
Health Challenges Outlined
Shortage of health professionals remains one of the biggest challenges in the health sector.
According to Kamwi, training and retaining of professionals is one long-term and sustainable way of addressing this persistent problem.
|
In the interim, the ministry has introduced "task shifting" that involves introducing a new and supportive category of workers to reduce the workload of nursing professionals.
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
