Namibia Failing to Meet Health Goals

from All Africa

The Namibian (Windhoek)

Namibia is unlikely to meet its Millennium Development Goals in reducing child mortality and providing equal access to primary healthcare, says Nangof, the umbrella organisation for NGOs.

"Access to primary healthcare remains highly unequal in Namibia," Nangof Trust Advisor Andrew Harris told representatives of non-governmental and community-based organisations during a workshop at Keetmanshoop last week. Harris said rural areas across the country are left without meaningful healthcare provision because of uneven service distribution.

He said a lack of primary healthcare centres in rural areas resulted in high rates of poverty-related deaths, especially among pregnant women and children under five. According to Harris, a survey of health services listed 248 clinics, 37 health centres and 47 hospitals in the country, which together provide 80 per cent of the Namibian population with health services. He said 20 per cent of all Namibians, especially in the rural areas of Kunene and Omaheke, lack access to primary healthcare, adding that rural primary healthcare facilities were understaffed. "A comparative survey of primary healthcare provision in Windhoek found that local clinics in outer Katutura are seriously understaffed whereas health provisions in wealthier districts of the capital show a much higher staff/patient ratio," he said.

About six per cent of the country's GDP, equivalent to US$77 per citizen, goes towards healthcare, which Harris said was far above the WHO-recommend US$34 per capita for low- and middle-income countries. He claimed that the health sector spent the bulk of its annual budget on administration, and that partly contributed to the unequal healthcare provision in the country. "From among 10 000 health workers in the country, only 3 000 are doctors and nurses, with the remaining 7 000 being people employed in the administration of health," he said. As a result Namibia is ranked 189th out of 191 countries in a World Health Organisation (WHO) global assessment of health sector efficiency, which compared spending on health with actual service delivery, Harris said.

He added that the health expenditure across the country was highly unequal too. He said the per capita expenditure on health was the lowest in the northwestern parts of the country, which also had the highest child mortality. Harris said Government had failed to meet its target in reducing the mortality rate of children under five years from an average of 63 per 1 000 to 50 per 1 000. According to Harris, most of the child mortalities were the result of malnutrition, a poverty-related cause of death that can be prevented at a low cost if the intervention was targeted at reaching the poorest parts of society.