The New University Teaching Hospitals and Nursing/Midwifery Services

What is it about public health facilities that people sometimes have to stick up with the employer just to access medical aid from a private hospital using the company’s medical scheme? 

No one, or at least that I know of, decides to get sick or wants their loved ones to be sick.  And most people can’t afford to get sick, and I mean literally.  While some illnesses are unavoidable, most of the diseases that we struggle with in Zambia are preventable.

         Re-organisation of the University Teaching Hospitals expected to improve nursing care and service delivery @zuno

Health and well-being for all at every stage of life, is what the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 3, to which Zambia is party, seeks to accomplish by the year 2030.

It is in the same year that Zambia aspires that its people will have “equitable access to quality health care by all” as reflected in the National Long Term Vision 2030.

Just like in the SDGs, Zambia had long set its targetsto address all major health priorities that include; maternal and child health,increasing access to health facilities by taking them closer to the people, increasing access to medical services and reducing the nurse/doctor to patient ratio.

 Looking at the set targets it is seems fair to realise that the Ministry of Health has a lot of work on its hands.

One does not have to dig deeper to find out the citizen’s perception of public health facilities. The frustration on the faces of those seeking medical attention in public hospitals and the huge number of clients in Private Hospitals does provide a clue. This without a doubt calls for a new way to doing things. We cannot continue running the health sector the same way and expect different results.

 

Zambia’s health system has over the years placed more emphasis on curative services, while paying little attention to the very things that land people in hospitals. This is expected to change as the Government’s focus now shifts from curative services to prevention and promotion activities. Embarking on such an exercise has called for modification of organisational structures, systems and the repositioning of the serving human resource for health into their rightful areas of competency.

In effecting these changes, repositioning nurses and midwives, who are the single largest group of health care professionals with a presence in all settings, should be given careful thought. There is currently no directorate or department of nursing in the Ministry of Health.  

Apart from the changing the structure of the ministry of health itself, the government through the Ministry of Health is reorganising Zambia’s biggest referral hospital, the University Teaching Hospital now called the University Teaching Hospitals (UTH), divided into five hospitals namely:

i) Children’s Hospital

ii) Maternity & Newborn hospital

iii) Adult hospital (Medical and Surgical)

iv)Eye hospital

v) Cancer Diseases Hospital

One notable thing that has come out of this is the expansion of nursing leadership, governance and clinical care.

 The University Teaching Hospitals now being overseen by the Senior Medical Superintendent with the help of the Deputy Director Nursing Services.  Each hospital has a Medical Superintendent, a Chief Nursing Officer and a Principal Nursing officer. Other areas that have a Chief Nursing Officer include; the Emergency and Adult Intensive Care Unit and Operating Theatres. In addition, each hospital would have Night Superintendent. This increases Chief Nursing Officers from one to seven who will also be charged with the responsibility of overseeing other hospitals within their speciality.

UTH is being used as a prototype and once successful the exercise would be scaled up to other hospitals.

The construction and modernisation of health facilities, recruitment of nurses and midwives, is expected to improve access and quality of health care services.

It is clear that Ministry of health is being made to respond to health challenges and is devising new ways of working upon realisation that Zambia needs a strengthened and responsive health system.  The transformational agenda the Ministry of Health has undertaken will, if not already, put to the test its level of flexibility and adaptability.  

Human resource for health is part of a health system, however in isolation, it cannot yield the expected result. A health system also encompasses various subsystems, such as finance and governance. More home grown research should be promoted, health financing increased, and the capacity of management in health facilities strengthened. There is need to ensure that nurses and all those whose primary role is providing health are equipped to provide quality care for all. 

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