Analytical summary of health financing in Malawi
(African Health Observatory - World Health Organization) - The Government of Malawi and its development partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to finance and support the SWAp Programme of Work (POW). The MOU provides for a common framework for health sector planning, budgeting, financing, financial management, and reporting and monitoring and evaluation. Other donors operate as provide discrete funding (through project support), but still as signatories under the SWAp MOU.
In 2004/2005 the total health expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was at 12.8% and in 2008/09 this decreased to 9.7%. The Government of Malawi (GoM) expenditure on health as a percentage of total GoM expenditure falls short of the Abuja Declaration target of 15%.
Health care programmes are services delivered by provider including curative, rehabilitation, medical goods to outpatients, preventive health programmes.
Special Feature- The universal struggle
Action for Global Health's Rachel Lander charts Malawi's fight to achieve universal health coverage and improve care standards for its people.
Although the room was full of women in brightly coloured clothes, there was an intense hush that I had not heard anywhere else in Malawi where groups of people gathered. Eyes were trained on the nurse at the front, who was delivering a health education class, and hers was the only voice to be heard. After the class, each of the women will have her weight measured and blood pressure taken, and speak to the nurse about her pregnancy. The statistics say that at least one of these women – who number about 40 altogether – will die from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth, but each is determined it will not be her.
Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world and it faces severe constraints in delivering the testing, medicines and healthcare that its people need.
On Malawi's health financing system
The Nation Online: Universal coverage implies guaranteeing access to appropriate mix of health services: (preventive, curative, and rehabilitative) care to all citizens at an affordable cost. One of the major factors restricting countries from achieving universal coverage is the availability of resources for the health sector.
The World Health Organization (WHO) admits that no country, no matter how rich, had been able to ensure that everyone has immediate access to every medical technology and intervention required to improve their health or prolong their lives. Thus, the need for countries to raise sufficient funds cannot be overemphasized.