A World Bank country study: Zimbabwe Financing Health Services

ABSTRACT

The main objectives of the report are to identify options for improving efficiency and in the provision of health services in Zimbabwe. The context for the report is one of rising personal incomes (and demand for health care); increasingly severe budgetary constraints; and an epidemiological pattern that includes both traditional childhood and communicable diseases and new challenges in the form of adult chronic disease and AIDS. The authors conclude that much remains to be done to make services accessible to all segments of the preventive health care such as child immunizations; safe motherhood activities; family planning; and rural water and sanitaition; and increase technical efficiency (especially in hospitals) by controlling length of patient stay; staff deployment; drug consumption; and vehicle usage. The report also concludes that; with the cash-strapped public sector now providing more than half the health services and heath financing in Zimbabwe; non-governmental actors will need to play an increasingly important role in the future. This means that the Government will have to find ways to permit and encourage non-governmental institutions (including church missions; private doctors; and nurses; commercial enterprises; and traditional practitioners) to extend service coverage. Moreover; a wide range of existing but under-exploited sources of health financing in Zimbabwe -- including user fees; private insurance; and municipal and local government revenues -- need to be tapped more fully; in order to stretch scarce central government funding: