HEALTH SECTOR IN MWANZA

Introduction
A healthy population is a population that can participate in their country’s development efforts. Tanzania being a developing country need more than anything else a good health services delivery system to ensure a healthy population. To this end the government has opted for the cut and dried western medicine approach, although, the population still has access to traditional medicine as an alternative.

Primary health care is the basic strategy of a policy which aims at making available the services of this system to every citizen who is in need. This way the government strives to provide an infrastructure which at village level is represented by Village Health Workers and trained Traditional Birth Attendants. The dispensary as a frontline facility is equipped and staffed to take care of some 90% of all cases in need of curative medicine. The dispensary is backed by a referral hierarchy of health centres and hospitals to take care of the remaining 10% which normally need more skilled health care, more sophisticated equipment and medical supplies.

 

Health facilities

The dispensary is the frontline facility in the health care system. The strategic location and coverage of dispensaries is the first step towards the realization of an adequate health facility network.

During the intervening period there had been an overall drop in the numbers especially in Geita district. Magu had a significance increase from 39 to 51 and Geita’s drop was from 55 to 40. Regionwise, the drop was from 318 to 314 dispensaries. The private sector accounted for 36.5% of all dispensaries in the region in 1995.

While the drop in the numbers of dispensaries was marginal the drop in coverage was significant at 23%. Geita district whose coverage for 1995 was the worst at 10,160 people per dispensary registered the biggest percentage drop at 71%. Geita’s new low was 17,400 people per dispensary. The urban districts of Mwanza City had the best coverage in both years though even here a drop was registered from 3,600 to 5,000. Of the rural districts, Ukerewe had the best coverage in 1995 at 7,100 to 1 while in 2001 the best coverage was held by Magu at 8,000 to 1. In fact Magu improved its coverage from 9,200 to 8,000. All other districts showed a drop in cover. The regional average deteriorated from 7,400 to 9,100 per a dispensary.

Dispensaries
Dispensaries are the first level of health care facility. Their strategic distribution ensure that all health problems are taken care of at the village level. Mother and Child Health Services are also attached to dispensaries.

Mbeya region has 268 dispensaries of which 186 are public, 51 are owned by voluntary agencies or parastatal organisations and 32 are privately owned.

H.I.V./AIDS

H.I.V/AIDS is not only a major threat to the health of the region’s population but also to the economic and social well-being of the people. Since no cure or vaccine has yet to be found, prevention is the only course of action left to check the spread of this scourge.
When 1996 and 2001 statistics are compared, it is clear that the rate of H.I.V. infection is serious. The percentage of H.I.V. positive cases among family donors was 7.9 in 1996 and 6.9 in 2001.

Regionwise the AIDS case rate for the year 1996 was 27.5 per 100,000 people. Women were more at risk at 34.9 per 100,000 compared to men at 20.0. Five years later in the year 2001 the overall regional case rate had climbed to 48.6 cases per 100,000 population. This represented an increase of 77%. This was serious. Females still lead at 57.9 compare to males at 39.2 cases per 100,000. But the gap between the sexes was reduced. In 1996 the female case rate was 75% higher than that of males. In 2001 the gap was only 48%.