Namibia failing to meet health goals

 

“NAMIBIA is unlikely to meet its Millennium Development Goals in reducing child mortality and providing equal access to primary healthcare.”

The article notes that “[a]ccess to primary healthcare remains highly unequal in Namibia … rural areas across the country are left without meaningful healthcare provision because of uneven service distribution … [and] lack of primary health care centres in rural areas resulted in high rates of poverty-related deaths, especially among pregnant women and children under five.”

It also notes that “20 per cent of all Namibians,especially in the rural areas of Kunene (where we are based) and Omaheke , lack access to primary healthcare [and] rural primary healthcare facilities were understaffed.”

A number of key facts and statistics from this article include:

• About six per cent of the country’s GDP, equivalent to US$77 per citizen, goes towards healthcare … far above the WHO-recommend US$34 per capita for low- and middle-income countries.
• The health sector spent the bulk of its annual budget on administration, “From among 10,000 health workers in the country, only 3000 are doctors and nurse, with the remaining 7000 being people employed in the administration of health,”
• Namibia is ranked 189th out of 191 countries in a World Health Organisation (WHO) global assessment of health sector efficiency, which compared spending on health with actual service delivery
• The per capita expenditure on health was the lowest in the north-western parts of the country, which also had the highest child mortality.
• The Government has failed to meet its target in reducing the mortality rate of children under five years from an average of 63 per 1000 to 50 per 1000.
• Most of the child mortalities were the result of malnutrition, a poverty-related cause of death that can be prevented at a low cost if the intervention was targeted at reaching the poorest parts of society.
• The north of the country is the area with the highest number of children with preventable non-lethal illnesses … because primary healthcare and vaccinations are the lowest there.

When you look at these it’s worth bearing in mind that we are working in the north-west of the country.

The whole article is available on line here