Zambia’s strategic plan to steer the provision of quality healthcare services to citizens in the next five years is taking more and more shape. The National Health Strategic Plan, which runs from 2017 to 2021 will now be implemented under the theme “Transformative Agenda and it will focus on primary health care through preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services as close to the family as possible’’.
The Minister of Health, Chitalu Chilufya, said during the recent launch that the plan gave the country a roadmap on the steps needed to be taken to drive the country’s health sector in the next five years. The plan, he said, was anchored on the country’s Seventh National Development Plan (SNDP), an overall roadmap for the country’s development. He said further, that the plan defined the key priorities and areas the ministry would be focus to improve the healthcare system in the country.
“The focus of the plan is strengthening the health system to ensure universal health coverage, using primary health care. It is meant to produce a healthy and productive population to drive economic development,” he said, and “… the plan is anchored on seven pillars: improving health service delivery, ensuring adequate human resource, ensuring a steady supply of drugs, and ensuring health care financing.”
“It is also to ensure adequate health care infrastructure, improving health information systems and ensuring leadership and governance in the health sector.”
United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinate Janet Rogan welcomed government’s decision to launch the plan, adding that it would help in tackling various challenges facing the health sector in the country. She said the health sector faced various challenges such as emergency of non-communicable diseases and inadequate investment in the health sector, adding that Zambia needed a comprehensive approach to tackling challenges in the sector.