This resulted in the ministry only managing to procure 14%
of the required medicines for hospitals this year due to financial constraints.
Addressing a 2023 Parliament pre-budget seminar in Harare
on Monday, Chiwenga said the failure to fund critical medical services was due
to financial challenges facing the country.
“The 2022 annual budget for medicines, health facilities
was $15 billion and only $5 billion was released.
“The comment from the public was that people were failing
to access the most basic services, and their major concern was the need for
critical equipment and services such as maternity,” Chiwenga said.
“The year 2022 faced cash challenges and this led to
inadequacy of critical medical supplies. However, with the funds that we have
availed, 14% of the required medicines were procured.”
He also said government only released $2,8 billion for
health infrastructure instead of the $18 billion allocated.
“The ministry takes note of the state of the infrastructure
at some of the health institutions. To address this, the ministry was allocated
$18 billion, however only 2,8 billion was disbursed. I want to clear this, for
the health posts, we should have 1 700 ward-based health facilities if we are
to give attention in terms of healthcare to every Zimbabwean. \
“We found out that there was a gap from the clinics,
certain diseases were supposed to be pushed straight to the districts.
“For contraceptives, government provided funding amounting
to $687 million and the Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council procured
contraceptives worth US$1,5 million,” he said.
Meanwhile, the country’s per capita (per person) spending
on health is said to have dropped from US$45 in 2021 to US$20 this year.
This follows a decline in health sector allocations from
13% in 2021 to 10,6% in 2022.
Community Working Group on Health executive director Itai
Rusike said the country was facing deep structural challenges in the health
sector.
“Government spends a relatively small share of its gross
domestic product on health. That is why
there has been a recent decrease on health expenditure per person to US$20 this
year from US$45 in 2021,” Rusike said.
Lower levels of per capita health expenditure indicate that
health expenditure in the country is insufficient to guarantee adequate access
and quality of healthcare for the communicable and non-communicable diseases,
injuries, other conditions and services.
The inadequate public financing of health has resulted in
an over-reliance on out-of-pocket and external financing which is highly
unpredictable and unsustainable.
The World Health Organisation recommends a per capita
health expenditure of at least US$84 per year.
Compared to other countries in the sub-region, Zambia’s
2022 per capita spending on health is US$85, South Africa (US$570 per person)
and Malawi (US$35). Newsday
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