BUJUMBURA June 18th (ABP) – The Ministry of Public Health and the Fight against AIDS organized a two-day evaluation workshop on the implementation of performance-based financing (PBF) starting on Thursday June 14, 2018 coupled with free healthcare.
In his opening speech of the workshop, Dr. Thaddée Ndikumana, the Minister in charge of health, told the participants that the main objective of the meeting was to evaluate the performances recorded to better evolve in the reception and the treatment of patients. Since the implementation of the PBF strategy at the national level, 7 years ago, significant progress has been made and performance recorded. This is particularly the availability of services and means both at the level of district hospitals and public, private and religious health centers. Everyone participates in the dispensing of care and people find benefits of proximity. But also in terms of numbers, there has been a clear decrease in the death rate among children, the increase in assisted deliveries.The meeting, held in the Bujumbura Town Hall, brought together senior officials from the central administration within the Ministry, all the medical directors of the national hospitals, the medical directors of the health provinces, the chief district doctors and district hospital directors, holders of health centers and representatives of technical and financial partners.
To those major advances, Minister Ndikumana identified a number of challenges to overcome in order to continue to improve the quality of care and services offered in health facilities. In terms of technical quality, the assessments of the last quarter of 2017, the reports presented by the enhanced verification teams of the Provincial Audit and Validation Committees (CPVV) urge all actors involved in the implementation of the PBF-free healthcare at all levels of the health pyramid.
At the 8th year of implementation of the PBF-free healthcare reform practice, according to Minister Ndikumana, the recent assessment still gives particularly low performance rates (less than 7%) in some healthcare facilities. The audit carried out in November by the Health System Support Program established by Enabel (formerly BTC) on EU funding, reveals weaknesses in financial management, the drawing of annual and half-yearly action plans and supervision of district management teams. Added to this is precarious hygiene in some health structures. The reception and filling of the obstetric file and cartogram leave something to be desired.
Minister Ndikumana reminded that there are remarkable gaps between the results of the assessments made by the accompanying NGOs, the provincial health offices or district health offices on the one hand, and those collected during the cross-verification organized by the Ministry of Public Health.
To change the game, the Minister of Public Health and the Fight against AIDS appealed to leaders at all levels of the health pyramid to increase their level of leadership and management to provide quality services to patients.
