Govt to recruit 7,499 health workers-Chilufya

Fri, 06 Jan 2017 10:24:27 +0000

By GWENDOLYN MCHENGA

ABOUT 7,400 health personnel are expected to be recruited by the Ministry of Health this year, says Health Minister Chitalu Chilufya.

Dr Chilufya said government saw it fit to recruit more healthy personnel to ensure good health service delivery to the people.

He said this during the media orientation meeting on the restructuring of Ministry of Health held at the Ministry’s Global Fund Board Room.

Dr Chilufya further said that government’s aim was to use primary health care as a vehicle to ensure that people were healthy and make primary health care central in the health systems.

He emphasized that the ministry had restructured the health service delivery module to emphasize the need for healthy households, heathier communities as a way to make the Zambia productive.

Dr Chilufya further said that in the quest  of reengineering of the healthy systems, large population and densely populated areas would be managed by public healthy consultants with public health officers who would interact with the community in various congregates setting.

The Minister said that the splitting of the University Teaching Hospital into four hospitals would help improve the health service delivery and reduce on the workforce by health personnel.

He indicated that the hospitals would have their own management, resources and would report to the Director of Health.

Dr Chilufya said that his Ministry would partner with the Ministry of Community and development because they had existing community structures which would be used to create demand for primary health care services.

It would also engage closely with other key players from other sectors that significantly influenced the health of people like the ministries of water and sanitation , education and agriculture.

He stated that this would only be possible through the interaction with the media who knew how to relay information to the public and that without the media key messages to the public for them to make health decisions would not be relayed.

Meanwhile, Dr Chilufya said all health workers would undergo an in house training to change their attitudes towards patients.