Govt. assures Mkushi of better health service delivery

Government has assured Mkushi residents of better health service delivery in aspects such as availability of drugs and trained manpower.

Health Deputy Minister Patrick Chikusu  said that his office had been furnished with challenges presented by residents, saying that shortage of medicines was amongst the most pertinent of these challenges.

He said that to this effect, Government had increased the Budget for Drug procurement from last year’s KR300m to this year’s KR500m.

He said that to add to this measure, Government was considering plans of increasing the capacity of Medical Stores into that of being an expanded supply hub for medicines in other areas other than Lusaka.

Dr. Chikusu noted that staff shortage had for a long time been a source of concern in areas such as Mkushi district, adding that this frequently resulted in staff overworking as well as slow delivery of health services.

He said that to address this challenge, Government was poised to beef up the Human Resource by implementing its KR35m budget for recruitment and training of Health related personnel.

He further noted that this intervention would be in tandem with another plan in which Government had earmarked to construct 650 Health Posts across the country.

He expressed confidence that these measures would adequately address the challenges that had been plaguing the public as well as Health Workers.

Hon. Chikusu however called on the Health Authorities in Mkushi to ensure that Drugs are administered with accountability, saying he would not expect shortages to persist as excuse for poor health service delivery.

He also urged for the scaling up of performance in other health related programs such as the World Bank sponsored project in which Mkushi was funded K30m for training activities as well as K119m for implementation of Malaria and HIV activities.

He highlighted the importance of magnifying  components of this program such as the Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) anti-malaria activity, as well as various HIV related activities.