Spectacular Progress in Ethiopia’s Health Sector

In the past to decades Ethiopia has invested heavily bringing the transformation of the health sector and its service to the centre stage. In its bid towards this noble end the country has registered a great deal of achievements. As a result, the nation has done remarkably well in meeting most of the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs), according to the Ministry of Health.

Among the notable achievements including the achievement of MDG-4 with a 67 per cent drop in under five mortality, the number of health posts has reached 16,251 while functional health centres have increased to 3335 in 2014.

In this case, health centre to population ratio has shown significant improvement and reached 1:26,390 by the end of 2014. The primary health care accessibility tothe population ratio, mentioned above, meets the standard of World Health Organization 100 per cent. In addition, the number of hospitals has reached 156.

ALERT is a medical facility in Addis Ababa established for Leprosy and Tuberculosis rehabilitation and training. The acronym stands for All Africa Leprosy Rehabilitation and Training. From the beginning, ALERT has been providing leprosy training for medical students from Addis Ababa University. Currently, the hospital is engaged in several medical services delivery.

In 2016, the strategic plan of the hospital was made based on the Growth and Transformation Plan of the health sector, hospital reform implementations, and public demands for services improvement. Recently, the centre has assessed its annual performance.

According to Mezemir Ketema, Chief Executive Officer of the hospital, beyond the regular services, mothers labour service has been improved and doubled up. It has minimized mothers’ sufferings from moving to other medical facilities looking for the same service. In addition the rate of inpatients has reached eighty five per cent.

The hospital is also improving its internal infrastructure for customers specially for people living with disabilities. It as well gives them transportation service. Although general surgery is still being referred to other hospitals, the hospital has finalized ninety per cent of the task to start the service.

Mezemir says, there has been a lot of improvements in the medical service of the hospital. Organizing regular meetings and discussing challenges to be dealt with and services to be improved it has established a strong communication network with its customers. It is also working with a special focus on ways of giving much more quicker service for patients earning free medical service.

Mezgebu Abiyu is a resident in Woreda 01 of Kolfe Keranio Sub City. He is a person living with disability.

Speaking of ALERT, he says” the hospital is improving its service from time to time as it has clearly strengthened its public relations activities as well. What makews ALERT special for Mezgebu is that the hospital has started a system which enables people living with disabilities to have service reservations by simply making a phone call from home.

The telephone service for service reservation is not only for people with disabilities but also for every patient for some reasons incapable to wait for turns inside the hospital. “We have hired three telephone operators to receive clients’ phone call and make a reservation list. The phone service reservation has helped decrease patients suffering from long waiting of turns for medical services. Now patients know the time when they can get the medical service and they can come from home based on the appointed check up time they got informed beforehand”, says Mezemir.

According to the annual report of the hospital, better achievements are portrayed in service delivery & accessibility, research, use of technology and invention including training. It has managed in scaling down the duration of in service beneficiaries stay. It as well is providing more and comfortable places of medical services. It has gained new accreditation for the Ethiopian Accreditation Agency in laboratory CD3, CD4 and gram stain.

This year the hospital has given training for 194 local trainees in seven programmes, national consolidated TOT HIV/ care Treatment, Clinical Liprosy and Dermatology for GHW, service training, national training on DRTB clinical and programmatic management, project management, TOT laboratory diagnoses of leprosy and monitoring and evaluation. On the other hand the hospital has also given clinical leprosy and in service training for 31 trainees who came from Israel, Sweden and other foreign countries. It is also giving a sign language training for people who have hearing problems.

However, the hospital is beset by some challenges like electricity breakdowns, technical problems on autoclave, chemistry and laser machines. Moreover, rent seeking mentalities have also been some of the challenges the the hospital has been fighting out. As a result a disciplinary measures had been taken on six employees of the hospital, says Mezemir.

Mezgebu hopes that, adopting new medical service systems, the hospital will maintains its good progress in the medical service delivery.

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Source: The Ethiopian Herald

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