LUSAKA Province Health Director Simulyamana Choonga says the timely provision of all critical inputs such as grants, drug procurement, recruitment of health personnel and other inputs to the sector evidence of government’s commitment to improving the management of hospitals.
Dr. Choonga was speaking at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) international workshop for strengthening hospital management experience in Lusaka.
He indicated that despite the country currently experiencing the drought effects, the government has continued to provide all key inputs to ensure the sector continues to function well.
He explained that the government is aware of some of the challenges that patients are facing and is committed to addressing them by benchmarking best practices from other countries such as Japan.
He noted that the visit of the team from the country’s health sector currently in Japan to receive training on that country’s hospital management practices will improve the quality of service delivery to patients in the country.
“There are practices there in Japan that we can learn and implement, so the purpose of that training is to improve the quality of services in our hospitals by benchmarking what our colleagues in Japan are doing,” he said.
Dr. Choonga disclosed that the team drawn from the first level hospitals in the country had developed action plans that will be implemented at the hospitals after their return.
He disclosed that the province intends to roll out the programme to other hospitals in the long term and is hopeful that patients at the first level hospitals will have access to better health care.
And JICA Project Chief Advisor Shinsuke Murai said the training aims to strengthen the capacity of hospital management experience of the five level one hospitals that had been targeted.
Mr Murai disclosed that the training was enforced in five areas of activity such as hospital governance, infection prevention control, essential medicines and medical supplies, medical equipment and coordination standardization and dissemination.
He explained that the training dubbed JICA Knowledge Co-Creation Program (KCCP) will expose the Zambian team to the hospital management practices in Japan.
“So, this international workshop here today aims to jointly discuss the action points recommended by the participants, enhancing their rationale, feasibility and effectiveness towards realizing the hospital vision,” he said.
Meanwhile, Chilenje Hospital Medical Superintendent Richard Mwila said the project has transformed the management of first level hospitals in Lusaka such as Chilenje hospital.
He said the project had provided equipment to the hospitals which has enabled them to carry out several interventions on patients.
“Our privacy to patients has increased and even our infection prevention is well managed according to the standards and guidelines after orientation of our five level hospitals by the same project,” he said.
ZANIS reports that a team of fourteen Zambians comprising pharmacists, planners and other personnel is attending the JICA workshop under the project strengthening management capacity for the first level hospital in Lusaka district.