Maravi

Impact of mushrooming NGOs on health delivery worries Dr Goma

Impact of mushrooming NGOs on health delivery worries Dr Goma
By Allan Mulenga
Tue 20 Mar. 2012, 11:58 CAT

DR Fastone Goma says the mushrooming of HIV and AIDS-related NGOs in the country has compounded the health delivery systems in public institutions. In an interview, Dr Goma, who is dean for the School of Medicine at the University of Zambia, observed that poor conditions of service in the public sector had made many doctors prefer to work in the private sector.

"The problem that we have had as well is the movement of doctors from public sector into the private sector, especially these NGOs which have come to do HIV and AIDS work. They NGOs have taken a lot of doctors. Although doctors are in Zambia, they have now moved into these NGOs where they are not really attending to the sick so to say. They are programme managers and they are more in the offices and that is what we would not want to continue to happen. We are training clinicians; we need to have these doctors; we need to have the nurses in the hospitals; in the clinics where they are needed most," he said.

Dr Goma noted that the brain drain in the health sector had slowed down.

"The brain drain has slowed down over the last three years. The conditions of service for doctors especially have improved quite considerably, so that what we are seeing now is a reversal. Most of our colleagues who were in Botswana and Swaziland have actually come back to Zambia because the government has done something to address the situation. I think last year, if you look at the number of doctors who went away last year, it is only those who went for training," he said.

Dr Goma urged the government to find ways of maintaining a few medical doctors who had remained in the public sector.

"I don't think there are doctors who went because they have found themselves jobs in Botswana or one of these neighbouring countries. It is a plus to government. We must now find means and ways of keeping them here," he said.

Dr Goma also said the prevailing high doctor-to-patient ratio, which currently stood at 1 to 20, 000, was unacceptable.

"The doctor-to-patient ratio is determinant to the quality of service. So as long as the ratio remains that high, you don't expect high quality medical service provision. So we have to accept what is being provided for now as what we can provide. But if we want the quality of service to increase, then we must increase the number of doctors. We must increase the number of nurses, and we must increase the number of other health workers who help them along with their duties as well," said Dr Goma.

Labels: HEALTHCARE, HIV/AIDS, NGOs

posted by MrK @ 4:18 PM