Question One
Tanzania is the largest country in East Africa in the context of geographical size and the
biggest beneficiaries of Aid in Africa, but its health status continues to be poor. The Ministry of
Health in Tanzania has offered me an opportunity to work as a Global Health innovation
Consultant. To implement my duties effectively, I will consider the three innovations provided
by the ministry for scaling and expansion across the country. The first most important task is to
identify the morbidity level of each of the three diseases affecting the people and rank them
according to their risk factor as categorized by the World Health Organization (WHO) (Challe et
al., 2018). According to the WHO disease profile in Tanzania, malaria and HIV/AIDS top the list
of the most challenging healthcare issues.
The healthcare organization believes that health promotion and prevention are the most
significant health service promotions needed to improve the health status of the people in this
country. For this reason, I believe that the Long-Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs) for malaria
prevention is the innovation that should get the first priority. Additionally, another report
indicates that only 54% of Tanzanians have access to clean water, and only 24% of the general
population can afford improved sanitation facilities (Twin’omujuni et al., 2021). Lack of these
basic facilities increases the risk of contracting water-borne diseases, which leads to diarrhea.
Diarrhea is a major cause of dehydration, which can significantly reduce the number of deaths
that result from dehydration when treated using Oral Rehydrating Salt. Therefore, it would be in
the country's best interest if the people learned more about the use of ORS to help save more
lives, making the ORS innovation second. Lastly, I will work on the Drug: Praziquantel (anti-schistosomiasis) innovation since it does not seem to affect a large part of the population.
However, it is still an essential part of healthcare improvement in the country.
Question Two
Tanzania faces several healthcare challenges, including a low healthcare-worker-to-
population ratio. Additionally, there is a significant disparity in healthcare workers distribution,
with the highest number working in urban areas, leaving the rural areas quite vulnerable. My first
focus will be to work closely with the Ministry of Health to determine ways the country can
overcome this disparity (Challe et al., 2018). Since there are few trained healthcare providers in
the country, the immediate solution would be to hire more medical personnel from the
neighboring countries to close the gap in healthcare provision. Nevertheless, the government
would need to find a long term solution to the problem by improving the quality of education in
the country to educate more healthcare professionals who would serve their nation. The ministry
can also implement the mid-level health workers program that would provide more healthcare
providers within a short span of time (Challe et al., 2018). Ideally, this would ensure that the
healthcare-worker-to-population ratio meets the WHO stands hence offering equal healthcare
provision to all Tanzanians.
Besides having more healthcare personnel to cater for the medical needs in healthcare
facilities, the country will have more professionals to run various health promotion activities.
These promotions primary role would be to sensitize people on the importance of using LLINs in
their home to reduce malaria infection rates (Challe et al., 2018). The program will focus more
on rural areas and families with a low income since they are the most venerable and cannot
afford to buy the LLISs. Additionally, the program will train the people on other ways to reduce the risk of infection, including draining stagnant water and clearing bushes since they serve as
the breed places for mosquitoes that spread malaria. The promotion campaign will also ensure to
encourage people to visit healthcare facilities whenever they display symptoms of malaria rather
than seek traditional alternatives (Challe et al., 2018). Ultimately, these promotions will ensure
that more people get access to medical help, receive LLINs and shun from the traditional cure,
reducing the malarial mortality rate in Tanzania.
Question Three
In essence, all humans have a right to proper medical care regardless of their social status,
ethnicity, or race. Primary Health Care (PHC) is a fundamental principle that addresses
individuals' health needs throughout their lives (Jinadu et al., 2018). PHC is a people-centered
intervention that requires everyone to maintain excellent mental, physical and social well-being
to live a quality life. Basically, people from all walks of life feel robbed of their rightful places in
society; mainly by the various health conditions they suffer (Jinadu et al., 2018). For this reason,
PHC focuses on a whole of society approach through disease prevention, rehabilitation,
treatment, palliative care, and health promotion. Through this method, the health care providers
can help people identify some of the factors that lead to infections and various medical
conditions that prevent them from living a healthy and quality life. As a result, the possibility of
acquiring these medical conditions becomes eliminated.
As much as this form of care is quite essential in improving people's health, it is barred by
various challenges. Some of these challenges include the patients' lack of choice. Generally, each
practitioner works differently with their patients with the main aim of promoting their general
well-being (Jinadu et al., 2018). Some of the methods that they might implements may be more compatible with a particular section of patients and incompatible with others. Therefore, patients
need to select the plan that suits them best. However, in most cases, they have to work with the
available options for lack of choice (Jinadu et al., 2018). Another challenge in the
implementation of PHC is variable qualities where some regions may lack quality healthcare. In
such circumstances, the patients fail to get the full benefits of PHC to other individuals in a
different area.
Question Four
The World Bank has classified poverty as the primary cause of poor health and a barrier
to accessing proper medical care (Keith-Jennings et al., 2019). Poor financial status leads to
people living unhealthy lifestyles for lack of choice. Most of the commodities required for a
person to live a quality life free from diseases, including quality food and shelter, are pretty
costly, and individuals from the lower social class can barely afford them (Keith-Jennings et al.,
2019). Additionally, these groups of people have to work extra hours to make a decent living
which is harmful to their health. Furthermore, most poverty-stricken people live in densely
populated areas, which increases the chances of the spread of disease in case of an outbreak
(Oliveras et al., 2021). It is also evident that low-income jobs do not offer health insurance
coverage which means the groups of individuals working in this category have to cater for their
medical costs. Ideally, this elevates disease morbidity rates for poor people since they cannot
afford quality healthcare.
Various reports have shown that most people in developing countries live below the
poverty level. The majority of those who reside in urban settings live in slums that are densely
populated and with poor sanitation (Oliveras et al., 2021). Additionally, those who live in rural areas have no access to adequate healthcare since their governments deploy most medical
personnel to urban areas. The unemployment level in developing countries is also high, which
means that most of the people in these regions cannot afford proper medical care services
(Oliveras et al., 2021) Moreover, most developing countries have poor economies and cannot
afford to put up well-equipped medical facilities hence exposing their citizens to inadequate care.
Consequently, putting all these factors together, the people in developing countries continue to
suffer poor health increasing their mortality rate.
References
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