Ethiopia’s health sector has been showing a commendable progress in different criteria for the past ten years but its transformation still needs to shift from building hospitals and health centers to quality medical education and health service, Doctors say.
Dr. Zufan Lakew, Gynecologist and Obstetrician tells The Ethiopian Herald trying to deliver medical education without sufficient facilities has been the major failure to quality health service.
Dr. Zufan, who has been a lecturer at Black Lion Hospital for more than seventeen years and also served as a dean, says there was a time that the medical faculty started more than five schools in addition to medicine. At that that time there has been a great deal of reform as the government focused on post graduate agenda.
As a result, the government has been imposing pressure on the schools throughout the country to enroll students in great numbers. “Our college was not ready for that. But we have discussed what we should do and come up with the solution. We utilized every resource and option that the government provided us with to start new departments including specialty and sub-specialty classes,” says Zufan.
Meanwhile, government’s pressure on the schools to educate more than eighty students in every department did not consider their capacity. “But we suggested various solutions to convert the challenge in to an opportunity and tried to proceed on the education without compromising quality.” according to her.
President of the Ethiopian Medical Association Dr. Gemechis Mamo for his part argues that the sector has been focusing on quantity instead of maintaining quality medical education over the past ten years. He also notes that even though several health institutions were built, quality health service was not delivered due to the gaps in delivering quality medical education.
Dr. Gemechis stressed that all stakeholders including his association need to take full responsibility for the consequences in service delivery as the government takes its share on its policy.
Dr. Hailu Kefele Internist and gastroenterologist argues the challenges are different in public and private health sectors. Medical service being commercial is the other problem. Ethics and honesty are the major principles in the service that a health practitioner need to prioritize. Personality is very important for health workers. If, the facility, number of students and teachers in medical schools is not proportional, it is hard to maintain quality health service.
Dr. Amir Aman Minister of Health, for his part says the issue of quality is what the Ministry highly putting efforts on. But the effort requires the participation of several stakeholders. According to the first factor that comes while dealing with quality is infrastructure. The second is providing sufficient medical equipment. In this case there is a serious delay in the purchasing procedure.
Taking that into account the Ministry has signed agreement with five companies in supplying laboratory and other materials for five hundred health centers throughout the country.
According to the Minster the other factor, as mentioned by the other doctors above, is the issue of providing well trained medical practitioners. “While we were engaged on producing more health practitioners, there are quality related issues that have been compromised.”
Meanwhile, the Ministry is working to build the capacity of health practitioners, who are currently engaged in the service, through continuous professional development and continuous medical development programs.
Public Private- partnership is also a center of focus. There are five areas that the Ministry is working through the public- private relationship; laboratory, imaging, laundry, sterilization, and pre-hospital ambulance services.
He say in terms of maintaining quality health care service, the contribution of the private sector is crucial as long as the sector is lead or ruled by ethics and the law. However, “we cannot limit the price of service in the private sector for the fact that our country follows free market system. But there are different options. For instance maximum return price tag that will be implemented in a year. The other option is improving the medical service in public health centers and hospitals,” notes Amir.
The Ethiopian Herald March 9/2019
BY HENOK TIBEBU
