The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Samuel Kamndaya
17 July 2008
More than 4,000 vacancies are at present available for recruitment of health personnel at various levels in public hospitals and health centres.
The Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Prof David Mwakyusa said in presenting the ministry's budget estimates yesterday that the vacancies need to be filled this financial year.
About 488 health experts will be employed and 4,000 other medical staff.
He said the shortage of medical personnel is a major challenge for the ministry, with public health facilities across the country lacking up to 65 per cent of staffing requirements.
Availability of people with the requisite skills was a problem as not more than 100 new staff have been recruited since late 2006 when the government issued a special permit for the ministry to employ available workers to cut down on the huge shortage.
Prof Mwakyusa said the government will continue to expand facilities to train more medical staff while additional measures, like offering contracts to those in retirement, will be used as mitigation for a while.
The opposition camp cautioned that the shortage of health professionals was impacting negatively on realising the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs).
Dr Ali Tarab Ali (Konde-CUF), who delivered the opposition speech, said local medical staffing levels were among the lowest in the world, coming only before Malawi and Rwanda, with an average ration of 2.3 doctors to 100,000 people.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation for developing countries is at least 10 doctors.
He said doctors were leaving the country after completing their studies due to low payment and a poor working environment.
He urged that a special programme to increase enrolment of health sector students at higher learning institutions be embedded in the Secondary Education Development Programme (Sedp) and the Primary Education Development Programme (Pedp).
He sounded alarm over the decreasing number of students who aspire for nursing and asked the government to improve the welfare of nurses.
According to him, the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (Muhas) enrolled 84 nursing students for 2004/2005 enrolment.
Since then however, fewer aspirants were being found for the profession, such that only four students were admitted for the 2007/2008 intake.
At a recent Group of Eighty meeting, donors pledged to "work towards reaching a World Health Organisation (WTO) threshold of 2.3 professional health workers per 1,000 people," to mitigate the huge shortage of needed personel.
Prof Mwakusya asked the House to approve allocations of Sh442.2billion for the ministry, with Sh242.1billion set for development activities while Sh198.16billion is allocated for recurrent expenditure.
He said the government has set aside over Sh53bn to purchase medicine and other medical equipment for use in 3,509 dispensaries and 364 health centres.
The ministry would seek to double number of HIV/Aids patients receiving ARVs from 145,000 last April to 300,000 by next June.
The opposition camp advised the government to reduce number of seminars and workshops which consume plenty of funds to discuss HIV/Aids.
Meanwhile, a parliamentary team has suggested that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) should coordinate activities of the Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA) and the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) to avoid duplication of functions.
Presenting proposals of the Parliamentary Committee on Social Services, to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, committee vice chairman Dr Haji Mwita Haji (CCM-Muyuni) said activities of the two agencies were interlinked.
He asked the government to draft single legislation to govern matters of food and commodity standards.
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