Health Systems and Economics in Zambia

This essay discusses the way by which Zambia performs in relation to the key elements of healthcare, including service delivery, health information systems, health workforce, financing, access to essential medicines, and leadership/governance.

Running head: ZAMBIA
Health systems and Economics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ZAMBIA
The Republic of Zambia is a country situated in south-central Africa and became
independent in 1964. This country has been found to encounter several challenges related to
healthcare in the recent years. This essay will discuss the way by which the country performs
in relation to the key elements of healthcare.
The six core building blocks of the framework are (i) service delivery, (ii) health
information systems, (iii) health workforce, (iv) financing, (v) access to essential medicines,
and (vi) leadership/governance Service delivery is principally subjugated by public sector
that regulates 90% of the facilities, with a gradual development of the private sectors as well
(WHO, 2018). However, Zambia has been identified as one of the 57 nations that suffers
from a shortage of HCW due to lack of adequate healthcare funding. Thus, there is a crisis in
the healthcare workforce.
The major shortage is for nurses and midwives and this can be addressed by
reinforcing and initiating a safe work environment. Moreover, they are not well trained in the
core competencies of partnering, patient-centred care, quality improvement, information and
communication technology, and public health perspective (WHO, 2006). The country has
also not developed any explicit or holistic health financing policies. In Zambia, the
augmented mandate for health information and the latent occasion to supply it calls for an
expenditure in construction of a sustainable national HIS.
According to WHO (2006) the country eliminated user dues in district hospitals and
healthcare centres that were present at rural and semi-urban regions, with the aim of to
increasing parity of healthcare access. Thus, it can be stated that Zambian healthcare sector is
donor dependent. Furthermore, the people also do not have proper access to adequate
nutrition, which can be accredited to 52% of deaths of children aged less than five years
(WHO, 2018). Medical products, infrastructure and vaccine services are a major weakness of

2ZAMBIA
the Zambian health sector. Hard work have been agreed upon on rearrangement and
rationalisation of the availability of pharmaceuticals. The rural areas have inadequate
apparatus and infrabstructure, and deprived maintenance.
Some of the major strengths of the country in terms of this element are namely, (1)
presence of commitment and strong political determination, (2) proper leadership structures,
(3) restricted mandate of the health ministry, (4) goodwill of partners, and (5) better official
capacity (WHO, 2018). However, there is lack of adequate policy direction, lack of
documentation, parallel department creation, and inadequate quality assurance. Bad attitude
of the staff, poor relationship between the health staff and community workers, increased
waiting time, privacy and the gender of healthcare workers (Mutale et al., 2013).
To conclude, despite the huge shortage of healthcare workers in Zambia, the
government is taking necessary efforts for enhancing the core competencies of the workers,
in order to deliver efficient long-term patient care.

3ZAMBIA
References
Mutale, W., Bond, V., Mwanamwenge, M. T., Mlewa, S., Balabanova, D., Spicer, N., &
Ayles, H. (2013). Systems thinking in practice: the current status of the six WHO
building blocks for health system strengthening in three BHOMA intervention
districts of Zambia: a baseline qualitative study. BMC health services research, 13(1),
291.
World Health Organization. (2006). Working together for health. Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/whr/2006/whr06_en.pdf?ua=1.
World Health Organization. (2018). Analytical summary - Health financing
system. Retrieved from
http://www.aho.afro.who.int/profiles_information/index.php/Zambia:Analytical_sum
mary_-_Health_financing_system.
World Health Organization. (2018). Analytical summary - Leadership and
governance. Retrieved from
http://aho.afro.who.int/profiles_information/index.php/Zambia:Analytical_summary_-
_Leadership_and_governance.
World Health Organization. (2018). Comprehensive Analytical Profile: Zambia. Retrieved
from http://aho.afro.who.int/profiles_information/index.php/Zambia:Index.
World Health Organization. (2018). ZAMBIA FactsheetofHealthStatistics 2018. Retrieved
from http://www.aho.afro.who.int/profiles_information/images/7/70/Zambia-
Statistical_Factsheet.pdf.