Public hospitals are the only healthcare option available for the vast majority of the population.
At all levels they operate under extraordinary pressure. Even centres of excellence which provide specialised treatments, such as the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, (NICD), have to serve more than double their optimum capacity of patients.
Lack of funding for new facilities and poor maintenance or management are common problems affecting much of the public health sector.
There is no excuse for this state of affairs as the country has plenty of competent, highly trained medical personnel. It has managed great strides in the past three decades in delivering cost effective drugs and raising life expectancy across the population. There is no reason to expect that standards in public hospitals cannot also be raised higher.
As a start, management and maintenance of public facilities must be significantly improved to help deliver better quality services for the population using public hospitals.
In the longer term, making public hospitals more attractive to patients and staff means building more capacity as well as making better use of existing resources.
Resources need to be spread around the country better. The government should review healthcare targets to encourage the development of more centres of excellence in all divisional capitals, and to provide incentives to attract and retain good staff in public hospitals.
