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Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior Health Reporter
Zimbabwe per capita expenditure on health should be at least $271 per person per year for it to achieve universal health coverage by the year 2030, Health Services Board (HSB)chairman Dr Paulinus Sikhosana has said.

In an interview on the sidelines of the board’s familiarisation visit to Harare Central Hospital yesterday, Dr Sikhosana said Zimbabwe was spending less than $86 per person per year, a situation that compromised effective service delivery in public health institutions.

“The minimum per capita expenditure on health should be $86 per person per year but Zimbabwe is currently spending way below that.

“Using those figures, the global budget for health should be around $900 million but we are getting approximately $400 million, which is half of what is needed,” said Dr Sikhosana.

He said the fact that 80 percent of the health budget was consumed by salaries simply meant that the sector was not getting enough allocation for both wages and service provision.

“What we are spending is inadequate making it impossible to meet challenges such as staffing, equipment, medicines and infrastructure.

“One of the issues that people have floated around is that the wage bill for the health sector takes about 80 percent of the budget but it’s basically because we are not spending enough. If we were to spend $900 million that is required, salaries could be accounting for between 40 and 50 percent, which is the percentage expected from a public health sector,” he said.

In relation to the state of affairs at Harare Central Hospital, Dr Sikhosana said some departments did not have enough equipment and where there was equipment, it was old and obsolete.

He said the hospital has also not been spared from the drug shortages being experienced elsewhere in the country and inadequate professionals in critical departments.

He said the situation was almost the same with the situation in Manicaland, where his team also visited a fortnight ago.

“One of the demotivating factor is the work environment. It frustrates health workers more than remuneration itself,” said Dr Sikhosana.

He said cognisant of this factor, the HSB was looking forward to coming up with an informed position, which will be used to deliberate on possible solutions to the challenges bedevilling the health sector.

Speaking at the same occasion, Harare Central Hospital chief executive Dr Nyasha Masuka reiterated the need to re-equip health institutions and increase budgetary allocations.

“There is also shortages of medicines and consumables. In some departments they don’t even have basics, and this has been worsened by current scenario in the market where suppliers are demanding US dollar cash  payments.

“We have run out of critical items such as cannulas that we use to put up a drip and patients have to go out and buy,” said Dr Masuka.

HSB spokesperson Mrs Tryphine Guchutu said the board will be visiting all provinces in the country to get an appreciation of state of affairs and assist in drawing up solutions to the challenges.

She said so far, the team has visited hospitals in Manicaland and Harare.