Posted on :Friday , 4th January 2019

Tanzania is considered to be one of the world's developing countries which is making tangible progress towards acheiving the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030 as the health docket is considered to be one of the sectors in Tanzanian economy that have shown huge potential and have also shown considerable progress in 2018.

Universal Health Care (UHC) is a system that is providing health care anf financial protection to all citizens of a country. UHC is also known as "Socialised Health Care".

In 2018, the government of President John Magufuli, working in collaboration with the country's development partners and other stake holders have made an efforts to come up with the key highlights. This objectives is to transform for the betterment of the health sector with a view to make sure that all citizens can sustainably access quality medical products and services.

The key highlights such as "Surge in health budget allocation" - The government sought to strengthen the health care services by raising the medical supplies budget in order to enable payment for essential medicines, immunisation, medical equipment, and also reagents to over sh300 billion in 2018-19 financial year as compared to just over sh35 billion in 2015-16 financial year.

"Almost 90 per cent of the essential medicines are now available in public hospitals; whereas atleast sh100.5 billion has been set aside to finance the construction of atleast 67 district hospitals countrywide; on the other side the government has also allocated atleast sh30 billion to facilitate rehabilitation of regional hospitals countrywide", stated Mr. Faustine Ndugulile, Health deputy minister.

Further he revealed that, the government will continue to improve healthcare systems and programmes in 2019 as well as this improvement is with a view to make sure sustainable provision of quality medical products and services in public health facilities at all levels, that is national, regional and district.

Dr. Ndugulile also said that, "the main focus is on enhancing Universal Health Insurance (UHI) coverage among citizens by establishing health insurance schemes with affordable packages to cater for all the citizens; whereas the another focus is on improving reproductive health with a view to resolving issues such as maternal deaths, reproductive tract infections including sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/aids, anaemia, reproductive tract cancers and so on."

The executive director of the health advocacy organisation, Mr. Irenei Kiria, requested the government to raise Health budget allocations and ensure sustainable disbursement of the funds to facilitate implementation of various health outreach programmes designed to create public awarness about NCDs and infectious diseases among others.