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Dr Lloyd Matowe

Oliver Kazunga, Senior Reporter
GOVERNMENT has been called upon to increase support to health care services to avoid reliance on the donor community in the provision of quality medical care.

Due to limited fiscal spending on the back of economic challenges, the country’s health sector has over the years been dependent heavily on donor support.

In an interview on the sidelines of the inaugural joint annual congress for Primary Health Care Physicians of Zimbabwe and Pharmaceutical Society of

Zimbabwe in Bulawayo, Pharmaceutical Systems Africa programme director Dr Lloyd Matowe said: “The government must prioritise access to medicine.

Without medicine there is no health service because medicine is the tool that makes someone well when they have malaria.

“We should be getting to a point where we work with donors to provide health services to our people and not a situation where we are relying 100 percent on donors to provide services,” he said.

Dr Matowe said Zimbabwe would continue to be one of the leading countries on health care services despite the numerous challenges affecting the local health delivery system.

“The Zimbabwean problems are known. We had the problems since 1998 and it’s a problem of access to capital. It’s a challenge of having the necessary equipment for medical care but Zimbabweans are a resourceful people, they always find ways and means.

“One of the key interventions to addressing the challenges is by having resourceful insurance companies that medical companies are able to insure and people have policies and policies are able to pay on time,” said Dr Matowe.

He said insurance companies in the country were struggling with cash flow because people were not paying their premiums on time.

Without policies, he noted that getting medical care becomes inaccessible and very expensive and thus it was imperative for the Government to encourage citizens to have medical insurance.

The two-day congress which ends today focuses on enhancing the health delivery system to ensure the country has access to quality health care.

“This is the first conference of its kind that brings pharmacists and doctors together. Pharmacists ensure that medicines are safe and they are the right medicines to be given to patients and doctors do the diagnosis and they are able to say what’s wrong with somebody. So having the professionals work together is invaluable for our people,” said Dr Matowe.

“We want to ensure that when somebody is going to a clinic there is collaboration between the person who is detecting what is wrong and the one giving the medicine. And thus we encourage the pharmacists to be selfless in providing healthcare services to the people of Zimbabwe.”

The event, running under the theme, “Ensuring access to quality healthcare services and essential medicines for all,” drew about 400 delegates including foreigners from countries such as Botswana, South Africa, Ghana and the United Kingdom. @okazunga