Lack of monitoring blamed for poor health services
A leading economic researcher has blamed inefficient monitoring by public leaders and state agencies for poor health service delivery in rural areas.
Speaking here yesterday at the African Economic Research Consortium’s Biennial Research Workshop, executive-director of an institution known as ‘AERC’, Dr William Lyakurwa said: “In those years, regular inspections in most health centers were a normal thing, but nowadays there is no such a mechanism”.
He said that during those good days, officials from inspection units used to visit all hospitals and health centers. “They used to inspect working and medical facilities like availability of medicine in hospitals and health centers,” he recalled.
According to Lyakurwa, it is high time for the government to work on this area to boost health service delivery in the country. Rural communities suffer the most due to poor health services.
During the regular inspections, medical practitioners also checked on the availability of expired drugs. Regarding primary education development in Africa, Dr Lwakurwa said some teachers in primary and secondary schools were unaware of the syllabuses they followed in teaching their respective subjects.
“This is a challenge that should also be addressed, because if it’s left unattended, it will contribute to poor student performance,” he said, adding that the teaching and learning environment also need to be improved.
“If students are taught in a well-furnished classroom, there is a big possibility for them to get better education, but for those who get education under trees, it’s a mere daylight to expect wonders from them,” said the expert.
He called upon African governments to work hard in addressing pertinent issues facing the education sector taking into consideration the fact that the sector was a key to all kinds of development.
AERC chief economist and vice-president Prof Mthuli Ncube said that the meeting was themed: Institutions and Service Delivery in the sub-Saharan Africa region.
He said that quality of services delivered in primary schools and health service delivery would be discussed at the workshop, which attracted the participation of 200 researchers, academicians, policy makers and economists from Africa and other countries beyond the continent.