Author: DEUS NGOWI
AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE has neither been to a medical school nor practiced as a physician, but the strides that the President John Magufuli-led government has recorded so far have elicited enormous praise beyond Tanzania’s borders.
He has gone over and above what he promised to the electorate during the 2015 election campaigns, as part of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Election Manifesto (2015 – 2020), which prioritises common people as the major beneficiaries.
He stood out as a unique top-most national leader after the corona virus pandemic reared its ugly head worldwide.
While many leaders elsewhere were gripped by panic and resorted to measures like lockdowns, President Magufuli psyched his compatriots into adopting unique measures.
These included psyching them into investing hopes in divine intervention through prayers, but while concurrently observing safeguards like wearing facemasks.
Group prayer sessions in houses of worship as well as by individuals in the privacy of their homes indeed yielded dividends, as Covid-19 pandemic literally surrendered, leaving Tanzanians and monitors of Tanzanian affairs enormously surprised!
President Magufuli, who is seeking re-election on the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) for a new five-year tenure, has already led the party in sieving candidates for various posts and settling for relative few ones who compose what is branded the winning team in the October 2020-scheduled polls.
The CCM Election Manifesto (2015 – 2020) – Chapter Four (49) provides, in part, that the Party would direct the Government to ensure quality health services to the people through, among other aspects, the primary healthcare system, ensure that every village has a dispensary, every ward a health centre and every district a hospital.
On cards also was the improvement of regional referral hospitals and construction or completion of new ones in newly formed regions.
It also advocated for Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the sector and vowed to strengthen zonal referral hospitals, construct new ones for southern, central and western zones and ensure that all of them offer quality services.
The manifesto pledged to enroll 15,000 students in social welfare colleges by this year so as to have enough workforce in the sector.
It further pledged that the government would construct, broaden and renovate health infrastructure, including building houses for the staff and employ more health experts from within and outside the country, and heighten the battle against malaria through, partly, distribution of free mosquito nets.
Sketching the gains in June, President Magufuli explained that the government had increased health service centres to 1,769, up from 7,014 in 2015.
These include 1,198 dispensaries, 487 health centres, 71 district hospitals, 10 regional referral hospitals, including the one in Mara – Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Hospital whose construction had been pending since the 1970s.
Three zonal referral hospitals have been completed, 14,479 new health workers have been employed; new doctors’ numbers being 1,000, raising the number of staff rising to 100,631 this year, from 86,152 when he was assumed office.
Much improvements have been registered in accessibility to drugs and medical devices, the budget of which was increased from 31bn/- in 2015 to 270bn/- this year.
“We have also bought 117 ambulances and we have trained 301 specialist doctors who have made it possible to improve specialist medical treatment within the country. This is specifically related to health-related diseases, ENT, kidney, bones, brain cancer etc,” he said in his speech to dissolve the Parliament in June this year.
The measures have increased the number of women who deliver at the health infrastructures from 64 per cent in 2015 to 83 per cent currently, decreasing the infant mortality rate from 25 to seven deaths among every 1,000 births while referrals to outside the country have been reduced by 95 per cent.
Given the improvement in the sector, specifically the specialist medical services, records show that patients from neighbouring countries have started seeking medical treatment in Tanzania, especially in heart-related ailments.
Some hospitals that have been receiving the foreign patients include Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Cardiac Institute (JKCI), Bugando Medical Centre (BMC), Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centte (KCMC) and Muhimbili National Hospital.
“The move by foreign patients to seek specialist medical services in Tanzania proves that we are good. We have done a great job in improving the health sector in the country. You, members of Parliament are witnesses to this,” he remarked.
Presenting her budget estimates for 2020/2021 Financial Year, the Minister for Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Ms Ummy Mwalimu, said the ministry estimates to spend 26,491,375,000/- as recurrent budget and 6,704,364,000/- for development purposes.
Some 4,000,000,000/- are from local sources and only 2,704,364,000/- represent a foreign component. The total is 933,283,979,000/-.
Against that background, President Magufuli and his compatriots within CCM can confidently seek votes from the Tanzanian electorate during the election season, for the party has demonstrated that it is a machinery that, through the government that is superintending over State affairs with its mandate, delivers outstanding results.
