Medical Services Outreach Programme Tanzania

Amref Health Africa’s Medical Services program focuses on improving the capacity of health systems to deliver quality health services through strengthening facility based clinical and laboratory services, especially in remote and underserved areas in Africa. The program provides a wide range of health specialists drawn from national and regional tertiary care hospitals as well as Amref Health Africa staff representing at least 21 different specialties. The Amref Health Africa Medical Services interventions are currently being implemented in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Senegal and Tanzania. Outreach activities are planned annually, and city based specialists make three to five days’ visits to the participating hospitals based upon requests. Tanzania is still facing a huge challenge in having adequate human resources for health both in numbers and skills mix. The levels of shortage varied over time since independence in 1961, with the sharp increase of the crisis being observed between 1994 and 2002 when the government implemented the civil service reforms policy of 1990s which involved the retrenchment and employment freeze that focused on cutting down public expenditure. Other contributing factors to the sharp decline included: weak planning and forecasting of Human Resources for Health (HRH) requirements; inadequate involvement of key stakeholders, including end-users of the health care system in HRH planning and brain drain within and outside the country. [HRH&SW Strategic Plan 2014-2019]. Despite a number of developments to respond into HRH crisis including development of strategies and intervention that focused on increasing production, quality and recruitment of HRH graduates, this remains a distant dream. In addition to this, hospitals experience on and off shortage of medical supplies and equipment that are relevant for the provision of medical care, poor infrastructure and receives inadequate supportive supervisions.