Africa-Press – Tanzania. HEALTH stakeholders have called for the need to have a national volunteering system that will enable graduates in the sector to be assigned to the newly constructed health facilities to curb the existing shortage of health personnel.
The call was made in a breakfast meeting in a wake that Tanzania is facing a shortage of 52 per cent of health workers, despite the ongoing efforts to build modern health facilities across the country.
Statistics show that the country has 98,987 health workers out of the required 208,282 health workers to deliver services in different facilities across the country.
Speaking recently in Dar es Salaam, the Chief Executive Officer of Benjamin Mkapa Foundation (BMF), Dr Ellen Senkoro- Mvungi said the shortage of human resources in the health sector has made the country to have a ratio of one doctor per 20,000 patients.
“This is a way far from the recommended ratio by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that suggests one doctor should serve 1,000 patients annually,” she said, noting that the government’s investment in health centres should go hand in hand with efforts to deploy health professionals.
“Investment in the health sector is very important, it’s encouraging to see the government is constructing a number of health centers, however they still need to be equipped with enough manpower,” she added.
To tap the gap, Dr Senkoro- Mvungi suggested collaborative efforts between government and stakeholders in ensuring the constructed health centers, hospitals and dispensaries are equipped with enough manpower.
BMF for its part has been playing a great role in employing health staff, especially in rural and hard to-reach areas, a move that to a large extent has helped to resource the shortage in peripheries.
The foundation focuses on addressing human resources for health challenges and accelerating HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment services, as well as maternal and newborn health services within Tanzania.
Moreover, it has played a role in fighting Covid-19 by employing over 600 over health professionals and some 2,579 community health workers who are creating awareness on containing the pandemic.
From 2006 to June this year, BMF has recruited around 9,000 health professionals where 4,000 are health workers and the remaining 5,000 are community health workers.
Present in a session, a programme facilitator Dr Issac Maro said that despite the shortage of professionals in health facilities, there is uneven distribution in rural and urban areas.
“Despite the efforts by government and stakeholders in improving service delivery, maldistribution of health workers has remained a big challenge in the health sector especially in rural areas.
“Statistics show that one doctor serves 78,880 rural patients while in town areas a single doctor is attending an average of 9,095 patients,” he said
