| Project Detail |
In Zimbabwe, the mortality rates from infectious diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria remain high; and non-communicable diseases are becoming the leading causes of death regardless of social class. Furthermore, premature birth, perinatal asphyxia, and septicemia account for 44% of the mortality for children aged under five. Improving health indicators is an urgent issue in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 to reduce infant mortality rate and infection prevention of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
In this situation, the Ministry of Health and Child Care of Zimbabwe (hereinafter referred to as MOHCC) set a goal in the "National Health Strategy (2016-2020)" to improve access to quality medical health services for the Zimbabwean people by strengthening the health care system. Moreover, in the "National Development Strategy (2021-2025)" to improve healthcare services by strengthening access to primary health care, reducing and rationalizing the burden on patients.
In Zimbabwe, all public hospitals are categorized as follows: the primary level (clinics and rural health centers), the secondary level (district and mission hospitals), the tertiary level (provincial hospitals), and the quaternary level (central hospitals) - and, patients receive more specialized treatment at the upper level hospital.
However, since the 2000s, the quality of services provided in public hospitals has become a serious issue due to the economic downturn. There are many issues in providing healthcare services: the outflow of medical staff to foreign countries has become serious while they are not paid enough due to inflation. There is also a shortage of basic medical supplies and maintenance engineers and difficulty in procuring consumables and spare parts for medical equipment.
To improve this situation, Japan International Cooperation Agency (hereinafter referred to as JICA) has sent the experts to promote the introduction of 5S-KAIZEN-TQM Approach in improving the quality of healthcare services in public hospitals. As a result, 5S activities have been voluntarily implemented in some hospitals, and the achievements such as reducing the waiting time of the patients to receive healthcare services, have been observed.
For further improvement of quality of healthcare services with existing resources by the 5S-Kaizen-TQM Appraoch, MOHCC requested the Government of Japan for a project, hence. |
