Chirowa Frank
It is indeed more than a year after the signing of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) in February 2009 and the economy seems to have found its path.
Industrial capacity is picking up with average industrial capacity at above 45 percent; the introduction of the multicurrency system has paved way for stable prices and shunning away the queues which described the economy during the Zimbabwean dollar era.
Everywhere in the papers the current gospel is trying to package ourselves so that we attract investors to boost our economy to full capacity but little is said about investment in the health of our population.
It is, however, worthwhile to highlight that health is not detached from economic growth.
Health is defined as, “A state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of infirmity” (WHO, 1993).
A positive relationship exists between economic growth and health.
When healthy, people have the ability to work more, that is, workers in the informal sector, farmers, civil servants and other workers in different economic fields all contribute to the growth of the economy.
On the other hand, economic growth has a positive impact on health thus it is important to lure as much investment in the country to drive our economy and have the benefits of investment spilling over to the health sector.
A badly run economy will have negative growth rates which will have adverse effects on health, poverty at household level, which will lead to poor diets and insanitary conditions which in turn result in the spread of diseases (Witter,2003).
Health care financing in the form of a national health insurance is important because it will cover everyone even the poor in rural areas who cannot afford basic medication.
The National health insurance, just like any private insurance in the country, will hedge against uncertain health care costs that may arise in the event of any illness.
This will reduce the time one takes when ill because of urgent treatment without having to worry about the costs.
The poor in the absence of National health insurance will not have access to medication till they have money for payments and some even die at home because they cannot afford.
National health insurance takes care of all this because it advocates for access to medication for all in the country, courtesy of compulsory contributions of all those formally and informally.
A lot of developing countries have implemented this scheme and these include Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania and Senegal.
Thus it is not surprising why some of these countries’ health status indicators are better than ours.
South Africa is moving in that direction though their scheme is in its early stages and currently is targeting the civil service before it moves to universal coverage.
One may ask how this will work when our government has faced problems with pensions and the Aids levy which had a good facilitation but the disbursement had problems.
Evidence in some countries that have adopted this system shows that a National Health Insurance is easy to set up in a country with a Social Security system already in place or allow a separate medical fund to monitor the funds for transparency.
The important factors in trying to have such a system in place include solidarity as a nation and share the same goal.
Once we all know that health is important and contributes positively to the growth of the nation, we will have those who can afford cross-subsidising the poor so that the poor get free medication wherever they are in the country.
Also important is that the scheme works well in a stable economy with no high inflation otherwise the funds will not be able to buy any medication since prices will be going up.
The stewardship role of the government is important in setting up such a scheme, that is, a government having people’s welfare at heart and advocates for social protection as a health policy will achieve a national health insurance.
To achieve such a scheme it is government’s role to carry out the facilitation and make sure all funds collected are earmarked for the purchase of drugs for everyone to access freely.
Now that it has been pointed out that health investment contributes to the growth of the country and also our economy is moving in the right direction I hope our government will move towards universal coverage of health care in future.
- Chirowa Frank is an independent economist, who can be contacted on 011 376 173 or on e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Economic View point articles are coordinated by Lovemore Kadenge and can be contacted on love This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 0912 382 852
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