By Ntokozo Magongo
MBABANE – The Ministry of Health, with the improvement in health performance systems, the Ministry aspires to reduce disease burden, prevent and minimise the burden of health risk factors, and increase life expectancy with quality of lives for all citizens.
The Minister of Health Mduduzi Matsebula said through strategic objectives, the health sector is being positioned to make significant positive strides in improving the health systems performance, through ensuring:
- Universal health coverage,
- Availability of essential services for all
- Access to essential services for all
- Quality of care in provision of essential health services
- Health system resilience
The Minister said the National Health Sector Strategic Plan 2024-2028 (NHSSP) has been developed following an extensive evaluation of the previous strategic plan. He said the evaluation assessed the performance of the strategy in line with the health systems strengthening building blocks namely: human resources for health, health infrastructure and equipment, health products and technologies, health management information systems, health financing and leadership and governance.
“While some of the pillars performed well, others were found to have experienced major challenges during the period of the previous strategy. The Ministry has therefore already identified priority areas for immediate attention, which include improving the supply chain management systems for drugs and commodities, strengthening leadership and governance of the Ministry and its health facilities, reviewing the deployment strategy for human resources for human resources, and establishing or upgrading health information systems through digitalization at all levels,” he said.
Matsebula added that in order to achieve successes in the priority areas, the NHSSP 2024-2028 has detailed the following strategic objectives:
*Strengthen health system development for the attainment of Universal Health Coverage and other health related Sustainable Development Goals targets in the country.
*Maximise Health System Outputs for the attainment of Universal Health Coverage and other health related Sustainable Development Goals targets in the country.
*Expand health service coverage for all health conditions for affecting all citizens in the country.
*Strengthen inter sectoral collaboration to address all non-biological determinants of health in Eswatini.
*Enhance health security and health intelligence capacity in the country.
“As we implement this new strategic plan, let me urge you all to make sure that there are regularly review meetings conducted with stakeholders of the health sector, to discuss progress towards the set targets. Such a platform will assist in not only knowing the different implementers of interventions but also to ensure that duplication of interventions is identified and quickly resolved. Furthermore, that platform will assist us in finding ways to improve or accelerate the implementation of different interventions and programmes to reach our set targets.
As I conclude, I would like to pass gratitude to the World Health Organization and other partners for the technical assistance provided during the review of the previous strategy and the launch of the new strategy. I am aware that our Ministry of Health teams worked diligently to ensure that the development process for this strategy is highly consultative,” he concluded.
