Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr Aldrin Musiiwa has expressed government’s commitment to improve poor populations’ access to health services through a number of measures including reducing financial barriers and improved health facility performance in line with the adopted results based financing model.
Speaking at the welcome reception for the Gambian delegation on results based financing in Harare on Tuesday, Dr Musiiwa said the exchange between Zimbabwe and Gambia exchange will combine experiences in implementing this program by both countries and as well showcase our tourist attractions for your pleasure and experience.
“Our focus with Results Based Financing (RBF) is to; improve on poor populations’ access to health services, including reducing financial barrier, strengthening health services quality through improving health facility performance and, management and promoting results orientation, thus contributing to sustainability in health service provision”, Dr Musiiwa said.
He added that the country is not at a mature stage with RBF and are working on a sustainable medium term framework to fully institutionalise the financing mechanism.
“We welcome all your criticism, your complements and suggestions on how we can be better and we will also be frank with you in this knowledge exchange visit”, alluded Dr Musiiwa.
This comes after the Ministry of Health and Child Care initiated the RBF with technical assistance from the World Bank, from a very short pilot phase that took six months to a nationwide program in less than three years.
The Permanent Secretary from the Office of the Vice President of Gambia, Mrs Nancy Niang, said their country prioritize health issues that is why their government has allowed three permanent secretaries and 16 senior officials and directors to leave their offices and come for a 10 day exchange visit in Zimbabwe.
“We are here to learn and we hope that we will tell you what we have learnt during the site visits that we will go” said Niang.
She added that after six months they will be telling a good story on how they would have made it in Gambia after this exchange visit.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Brigadier General Dr Gerald Gwinji said the delegation from Gambia will have an opportunity to meet the Provincial Health executives, District health executives as well as meeting the community and go to supportive health rural centres.
“These health professionals will share their experiences on the implementation of RBF and it will be a fully packed and interactive time for colleagues from Gambia”, Dr Gwinji said.
RBF is a new approach to financing health care services through incentivizing output that is paying for results and this approach is in comparison to the usual input financing to get results.
