BLANTYRE, July 29: President Peter Mutharika thinks his government has found a formula that will keep sick Malawians out of hospital: prevent occurrence of diseases so that you spend little on curative measures.
Donors spend millions of kwachas to buy drugs for sick Malawians, but the president says: “It is high time high time the country adopted preventive and not curative health services because the latter is costly at individual, family, community and national level.
The President was speaking when he launched the Third Financing Summit being held in Lilongwe where health experts and the World Health Organisation (WHO) are thrashing out key recommendations for a clean health bill.
Malawi faces shoddy health standards, with shortages of drugs, qualified staff and facilities being common.
“The health sector is presently more preoccupied with curative(treatment) than preventive health services,” he said. “It is a known fact that the more we prevent diseases, the lesser our hospitals will be burdened with sick people.
“We should not aim at managing our individual health through medicines only; it is high time we adopted positive health behaviours to prevent diseases.”
WHO resident rep Eugene Nyarko told the meeting low funding to the ministry of health was a major challenge to the poor country which depends on donors for up to 40 percent of its national budget.
“There is need to increase funding in the health sector for effective delivery of the health services and reducing mortality rate,” Nyarko, who is the secretary of the Health Donors Group, added.–Maravipost
