![Vice President Saulosi Chilima speaks during Health Reform Stakeholder Forum in Lilongwe on Tuesday (C) Stanley Makuti]()
Vice President, Dr Saulos Chilima Tuesday said the country needed to address inefficiency and wastage of public resources to achieve Universal Health Coverage.
[caption id="attachment_99703" align="alignright" width="600"]
![Vice President Saulosi Chilima speaks during Health Reform Stakeholder Forum in Lilongwe on Tuesday (C) Stanley Makuti]()
Vice President Saulosi Chilima speaks during Health Reform Stakeholder Forum in Lilongwe on Tuesday (C) Stanley Makuti[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_99704" align="alignright" width="600"]
![Vice President Dr.Saulosi Chilima is accompanied by officials from Ministry of Health ,World Health Organisation and from the Parliament at the meeting (C) Stanley Makuti]()
Vice President Dr.Saulosi Chilima is accompanied by officials from Ministry of Health ,World Health Organisation and from the Parliament at the meeting (C) Stanley Makuti[/caption]
Speaking during the official opening of the day long Health Reform Stakeholders Forum in Lilongwe, Chilima said inefficiency in the public sector remains the core goal of the public sector reform programme.
“While the immediate objective is to increase client satisfaction with the public service, eliminating inefficiency and wastage of public resources will directly contribute to the achievement of Universal Health Coverage by allocating efficiency savings with quality health and other complementary public service,” explained Chilima.
He also emphasized that the country’s Health System is built on the basic principle of solidarity, which entails that everyone must contribute to financing the Essential Health Package based on their ability to pay, but should use essential health package based on their basic needs.
Vice President Chilima added that Universal Health coverage and effective achievement of this principle is a journey which the champion of the Public Sector Reform Programme has committed itself.
He further said Government over the years, implemented a number of reforms and health systems strengthening initiatives aimed at improving the health sector, especially those that were under the Millennium Development Goals.
“As a country we have also implemented the Human Resources for Health initiatives aimed at training, recruiting, motivating and retaining health workers, the implementation of service Level Agreement (SLAs) with Christian Health Organizations in Malawi (CHAM) and decentralization of the provision of Health Services to District Assemblies,” he said.
Chilima said these reforms made tremendous contribution to the sector in the reduction of child and maternal rates.
However, he said the majority of Malawians still face significant health challenges that must be addressed urgently by all adding that while some of the challenges can be dealt with by the sector.
Chilima added that other challenges the sector is facing was of rapid population growth is also a silent threat, exerting further pressure on the inadequate public resources and inequality in accessing and utilization of health services.
World Health Representative and Chairperson of Health Donor Group, Dr. Eugene Nyarko the country does not want to pay people to pay for health services which are not to their advantage.
He said the potential is available, but the country needs to explore the potential to make sure that health services are affordable for government and beneficiary and also make sure that all Malawians have access to health services.
Nyarko said there is a need to use domestic resources to boost the health sector looking at the funding saying that the funded money are used on human resource and infrastructure development.
He added that government already provide domestic resources, but there is a need for government to look for more creative ways of taxing system that would be able to bring income that government requires to financial the services.
“Government should also be creative in the domestic arrangement that we have to be able to put the resources together it is possible and so many countries in Africa have done it and Malawi cannot excuse herself,” Nyarko explained.
He said government needed to see how much it can expand on domestic resources, improving the entire system and bringing other forms of resource mobilization from domestic sources.
Nyarko further said external resources would come to compliment on what the country already has because these time the resources are not coming from outside the country and the country cannot say it failed to implement a project because the aid was not there.
The meeting was aimed at discussing on how to improve access to health services to poor Malawians, how to improve quality health services in the central , district and other referral hospitals and issues of health assurance.
Vice President Saulosi Chilima speaks during Health Reform Stakeholder Forum in Lilongwe on Tuesday (C) Stanley Makuti[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_99704" align="alignright" width="600"]
Vice President Dr.Saulosi Chilima is accompanied by officials from Ministry of Health ,World Health Organisation and from the Parliament at the meeting (C) Stanley Makuti[/caption]
Speaking during the official opening of the day long Health Reform Stakeholders Forum in Lilongwe, Chilima said inefficiency in the public sector remains the core goal of the public sector reform programme.
“While the immediate objective is to increase client satisfaction with the public service, eliminating inefficiency and wastage of public resources will directly contribute to the achievement of Universal Health Coverage by allocating efficiency savings with quality health and other complementary public service,” explained Chilima.
He also emphasized that the country’s Health System is built on the basic principle of solidarity, which entails that everyone must contribute to financing the Essential Health Package based on their ability to pay, but should use essential health package based on their basic needs.
Vice President Chilima added that Universal Health coverage and effective achievement of this principle is a journey which the champion of the Public Sector Reform Programme has committed itself.
He further said Government over the years, implemented a number of reforms and health systems strengthening initiatives aimed at improving the health sector, especially those that were under the Millennium Development Goals.
“As a country we have also implemented the Human Resources for Health initiatives aimed at training, recruiting, motivating and retaining health workers, the implementation of service Level Agreement (SLAs) with Christian Health Organizations in Malawi (CHAM) and decentralization of the provision of Health Services to District Assemblies,” he said.
Chilima said these reforms made tremendous contribution to the sector in the reduction of child and maternal rates.
However, he said the majority of Malawians still face significant health challenges that must be addressed urgently by all adding that while some of the challenges can be dealt with by the sector.
Chilima added that other challenges the sector is facing was of rapid population growth is also a silent threat, exerting further pressure on the inadequate public resources and inequality in accessing and utilization of health services.
World Health Representative and Chairperson of Health Donor Group, Dr. Eugene Nyarko the country does not want to pay people to pay for health services which are not to their advantage.
He said the potential is available, but the country needs to explore the potential to make sure that health services are affordable for government and beneficiary and also make sure that all Malawians have access to health services.
Nyarko said there is a need to use domestic resources to boost the health sector looking at the funding saying that the funded money are used on human resource and infrastructure development.
He added that government already provide domestic resources, but there is a need for government to look for more creative ways of taxing system that would be able to bring income that government requires to financial the services.
“Government should also be creative in the domestic arrangement that we have to be able to put the resources together it is possible and so many countries in Africa have done it and Malawi cannot excuse herself,” Nyarko explained.
He said government needed to see how much it can expand on domestic resources, improving the entire system and bringing other forms of resource mobilization from domestic sources.
Nyarko further said external resources would come to compliment on what the country already has because these time the resources are not coming from outside the country and the country cannot say it failed to implement a project because the aid was not there.
The meeting was aimed at discussing on how to improve access to health services to poor Malawians, how to improve quality health services in the central , district and other referral hospitals and issues of health assurance.