MoHS & Partners Sign National Health summit Aide Memoire
In any
progressive-thinking institution, management must be in a position and willing
to consultatively identify challenges, encourage participation to proffer ideas
that speak to those challenges, present tangible recommendations, and most
importantly, implement those recommendations.
The
Ministry of Health & Sanitation, under its relatively new leadership, has,
through the recently-concluded first-ever National Health Summit &
Recognition Awards, identified the impediments to service delivery, encouraged
extensive participation in addressing these roadblocks, and as a result
developed an Aide Memoire that sets the
pathway for transforming healthcare delivery towards universal health
coverage.
The
Aide Memoire was officially signed and launched on Thursday 28th
April 2022 during a press conference at the Ministry of Information &
Communications. The document devises practical formulae for the implementation
of the Life Stages Approach; this will see the formation of a technical working
group mandated with the responsibility to come forth with a manual for the
adaptation and integration of the Life Stages Approach across MoHS directorates
and programmes.
Embedded
also in the Aide Memoire is the agreement to implement strategic declarations
(such as the Kobeibu Declaration of 2018, Galliness Declaration of 2020, and
the Independent Management and Functional Review of 2021) that’ll enhance
management, functional and infrastructural reforms in the health sector. Incorporated into the Aide Memoire is also
a requirement for the development of a capital investment plan, scale-up plan
for the institutionalization of standards for quality of care at health care
facilities.
It
went further to adequately develop terms of references with timelines, provide
quarterly updates, come up with concept notes, set up intersectoral working
groups, devise a yearly plan of action, develop tracking matrix and designate
directorates for specific roles; all with a shared motive of shaping the
narrative to competently fill gaps in service delivery for universal health
coverage, health security & emergencies, human resource for health &
gender mainstreaming, health financing, partnership, and coordination and
health management information systems.
Of key focus was the agreement by the donors and implementing partners to now jointly plan and implement all their activities and resources in accordance with government priorities in order to prevent inefficient use of resources and uncoordinated implementation.
The
signatories to this document were: the Honourable Minister of Health and
Sanitation and Vice-Chair, Health Development Partners.
