Healthcare in Malawi
Healthcare in Malawi and its limited resources are inadequate to fully address factors plaguing the population, including infant mortality and the very high burden of diseases, especially HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
Only the very few privately run hospitals in the two major cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe have very limited non purposely built vehicles serving as basic ambulances used to transport their paying patients mostly without life-saving equipment on board or an on-board paramedic.
Recent survey indicate that, unlike in cases of HIV, Malaria, or TB, patients with diseases which require expert clinical skills and equipment, e.g. cardiac or neural related problems, are likely to receive wrong diagnosis and incorrect treatment or medication resulting to in unnecessarily high mortality rates.
Most common medication found in hospital pharmacies in the west are not available locally i.e. treatment for the heart diseases or cancer are unavailable.
[2] Public sector provision of health care is free and organised into three tiers- primary, secondary and tertiary.
[6] If the patient's condition is considered to be too critical for primary care facilities to handle, they will be referred to the next level of the healthcare system.
These hospitals are equipped to provide the same basic services as the primary care facilities (mentioned above) in addition to a few more, such as: x-ray, ambulance, operating theatre, and a laboratory.
Challenges that lead to this shortage are low outputs of medical training institutions, health worker retention, and disease.
In 2005, Malawi began to implement its emergency human resource program which concentrates on increasing output of trained medical personnel, improving health worker compensation and retention.
[7] The EHP was derived from estimates of the most significant burdens of disease in Malawi provided in 2002 by the World Health Organization.
[3] In 2004, the government of Malawi, in collaboration with partners, developed a six-year program of work (POW) that revolved around the EHP and guided the implementation of a health sector-wide approach (SWAp).
[3] Measuring the outcomes of interventions, such as those facilitated by the SWAp, is very difficult due to the absence of a vital registration system and surveys to track changes in mortality.
[15] In 2019, The Ministry of Health Chief Director, Bestone Chisamile, said: “Investing in healthy people is the bedrock of economic and social development.
I therefore appreciate the interest of Medobal family to assist governments in this network in building capabilities for quality improvement in coordinated ways”.
[13] Chisamile explained the launch of the company in Malawi signifies that quality healthcare service is everyone's responsibility saying the launch of Medobal in Malawi will enable countries to accelerate actions through well-coordinated and harmonised efforts to keep improving using evidence- based standards and implementation interventions.
