Rumbidzayi Zinyuke — Health Reporter
ZIMBABWE has made significant strides in improving the provision of healthcare services to all citizens over the past four years as enshrined in the National Health Strategy.
The country's health sector strategic focus is guided by overall Vision 2030 that seeks to transform Zimbabwe into a middle-income economy by 2030 and the National Development Strategy 1.
Yesterday, Health and Child Care Minister Douglas Mombeshora presented to Cabinet a performance report on the National Health Strategy for the period 2021-2024, which showed that interventions made in the health sector were bearing fruit.
Under the strategy, Government identified 10 strategic focus areas for the health sector that were expected to guide and direct health investments towards the attainment of universal health coverage.
Addressing yesterday's post Cabinet briefing, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Dr Jenfan Muswere, noted the improvements that had been reported during the period.
"Given that about 90 percent of Zimbabweans access health services through the public health system, the Government is upgrading and expanding the system to provide all the requisite services. Government introduced quinary level care, which is now the highest level of care meant to offer super-specialised services. The first quinary hospital is being established and is currently under construction.
"Government has also made significant progress in the development of new health infrastructure and the refurbishment of existing facilities," said Dr Muswere.
The minister added that over 78 percent of district hospitals in Zimbabwe have fully-operational theatres to perform emergency maternity surgery, and 93 percent have kits for resuscitating newly born babies.
Overall, the health sector has made significant progress towards achieving the targets set in the National Health Strategy (2021-2025).
Dr Muswere said owing to increased access to healthcare, there had been notable improvement in the quality of life and this had resulted in an increase in the life expectancy at birth for females from 66,5 years to 68 years, while life expectancy at birth for males remained at 61 years.
He said the country had also met the recommended 2010 World Health Report threshold for public health expenditure per capita in 2021.
Public health expenditure per capita has been increasing since the start of implementation of the National Health Strategy.
Availability of medicines has been another major cause for concern over the past years and data shows that since 2020, there has been a marked improvement in medicine stocks.
"There was a general increase in the availability of medicines in health facilities, from 51 percent in 2020 to 54,1 percent in 2021. In the second quarter of 2022, almost 96 percent of public health facilities had at least 80 percent of essential medicines in stock. Antimalarials, ARVs, and anti-TB medicine stocks remained adequate during the period," Dr Muswere said.
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The Second Republic has also made progress in responding to the HIV pandemic over the years. In 2021, the proportion of people living with HIV who were put on antiretroviral therapy (ART) was 98 percent. The AIDS mortality rate continues to decline.
The World Health Organisation removed Zimbabwe from the list of 30 High-Tuberculosis burden countries in recognition of its success in reducing the burden of TB disease in recent years.
