A Sudanese official admitted that the citizen bears the brunt of 79% of the Ministry of Health’s spending, while specialists said that the current level of government spending on health will not enable the implementation of any plans.
AlTaghyeer: Khartoum: Sarah Taj al-Sir
The Plenipotentiary Sudanese Minister of Health, Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim, acknowledged that 79% of the ministry’s spending comes out of the “citizen’s pocket”.
He complained about the weak funding allocated to health and the direct dependence in some programs on donors.
On Thursday, the National Fund for Medical Supplies held the first meeting of the Advisory Board of the Ministry of Health.
The agent said that the formation of the advisory council came against the background of Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok’s earlier directives, and indicated that the last council of the ministry was in 2017.
Awad added that the aim of the meeting is to start correctly prioritizing the next stage through health governance.
He cautioned that there were intersections that even affected the ministry’s structure, pointing out that the last internally approved structure was in 2017.
The Undersecretary presented to the members of the Council a work and task identification proposal represented in approximating the shadow of follow-up, the full activation of the Council and expediting the resolving of issue.
For their part, the members of the Council stressed the need to find an emergency plan for the transitional period, determine priorities, and correct health policies.
The participants in the meeting revealed that there is a defect in the vision and a lack of coordination between the ministries and the relevant authorities in the annual required numbers of medical and health cadres.
The meeting considered that the continuation of the current pattern of government spending on health will not enable the implementation of any plans because it is the least funding even at the level of Africa.
The country’s health sector suffers from great difficulties inherited from the former regime, poor sanitation on the health sector and lack of clarity of policies.
