Ethiopia: Advancing Health Achievements
Posted on : Wednesday , 26th October 2016
The ever green Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' State is one of the best places to live in Ethiopia. Recently a crew of journalists has paid a visit to Gurage Zone located in this beautiful State. Early in the morning last Tuesday, the crew begun their journey from southern town, Hawassa. After leaving Ez'za Woreda behind, and crossing Zebidar Mountain, we entered Agena Health Centre of Ez'za Woreda. Immediately, we directly headed to modern built cottage behind the centre.
Inside the cottage, there are over eight mothers laying down on couch and watching television. All the women look comfortable and feel home as the cottage is equipped with all the necessary household items. The cosy cottage does not look like delivery waiting room at all. Surprisingly, the mothers have become one big family and developed outstanding interpersonal communication among themselves.
The writer talked to a mother named Mura Gebreyes coming to the health centre for giving birth to her second baby.
Recalling her previous good birth experience at the centre, she is full of confidence that her delivery will be the healthiest and safest one. Moreover, to avoid any health complications related to pregnancy, she came to the the health centre before two weeks of delivery date.
In similar coin, Bedria Ahmed from Guyer kebele has come to the health centre to deliver her 8th child. She said that aside from getting nutritious foods, she has been receiving all necessary maternal care. Further she said that before she had given birth to her fourth child, she did not know anything about pregnancy care. Since then, she has been seeing doctors in a timely manner during her last three pregnancy periods .
Obviously, for the last two decades, Ethiopia has achieved a lot in terms of reducing maternal and child mortality. This is mainly because of the expansion of the health service coverage across the country.
Therefore, Ez'za Woreda Health Centre is a showcase for the effort exerted so far in this regard. Before the tour day at the annual review meeting, Health Minister Dr. Kestebirhan Admassue said that the expansion of health service at grass roots is an indicator for achievement in the sector.
In fact, enhancing execution capacity of woreda, strengthening capacity of the development army, enhancing the effort of creating model family and creating model kebele are crucial with regard to achieve health sector transformation plan.
Accordingly, Ethiopia and China have shown high achievement in terms of improving life expectancy and reducing maternal and child death, other ten big health problem burdens have also been declined.
Citing the recently published UN Inter-Agency Group (UN-IAG) report, Dr. Kestebirhan said that maternal mortality rate (MMR) has declined from 1,400 to 353 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births between 1990 and 2015. Child mortality has also declined significantly, from 205 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 59 in 2015. Similarly, the percentage of deliveries attended by skilled health personnel increased in the same period.
The ministry has made wide preparation to achieve HSTP goals. In the reported period, training has been offered in ten thousand to cascade health sector development through implementing the target set. Similarly, 25,000 health extension workers have got awareness raising training on the HSTP.
National quality packages strategic plan has been prepared in a bid to ensure health service quality. Accordingly, hospital service reform has been implemented to improve hospital service provision. Similar tasks are also been applying in health stations.
According to recent document, improving quality; addressing inequalities are key pillars of Health Sector Transformation Plan (HSTP). A lot of activities were carried out in line with developing HSTP implementation guides/manuals and a preparatory phase has been successfully implemented.
As to Dr. Kesetebirhan, by the joint efforts made together with stakeholders and development partners, encouraging strides and a leap forward have registered in priority areas such as maternal and child health, nutrition programme, communicable and chronic diseases, infrastructure, human resource development and pharmaceutical supply services.
With regards to nutrition, besides developing National Nutrition Programme II and the launch of Seqota Declaration to end malnutrition by 2030, the nation were also prepared micro-nutrient prevention and control acute malnutrition management, maternal, adolescent, infant and young children nutrition and multi-sectoral nutrition implementation guidelines were prepared.
Remarkable achievement has been registered since the start of HSDP I in prevention and control of HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, and the report has shown that this has also been maintained in the first year of HSTP. A total of 394,566 clients are on Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART) service.
Indicating that the need for enhancing manpower for HSTP attainment, the report indicated that, annual medical school enrolment capacity is raised to 16,389 in the reported period. Similarly, 1,275 physicians were deployed and increased the ratio to one physician per 14,045 population.
According to the report, expanding, equipping, furnishing, maintaining, and managing health facilities are one of the priorities of HSTP. By the same token, the sum total of available health centres has reached to 3,579 with a ratio of 1 health centre to 25,705population.
In the last fiscal year, encouraging progress was made with regard to strengthening the pharmaceutical service, the national vital and essential pharmaceuticals stock status on average reached 86 per cent. National vital and essential drug list also increased to 713.
"In spite of significant improvements in healthcare delivery in recent years, clients of our healthcare system are not receiving consistent and reliable high quality care. Thus, encouraging progress must accelerate in order to achieve the goals set to improve the health outcomes in the next five years."
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