Zambia has become the first country assisted by Japan to digitalize its maternal and child health to attain better service delivery.
The Ministry of Health has disclosed that the president of Japan’s Association of African Economy and Development Yano Tetsuro, who led a delegation to pay a courtesy on the Minister of Health, Ms. Sylvia Masebo yesterday, disclosed that the Japanese government had already began the digitalization process in the Copperbelt and Central provinces. The program is expected to be completed in three years.
In addition, Japan will construct mothers’ shelters at various health facilities across the country, which should assist in preventing maternal deaths.
Tetsuro further revealed that Japan would give free meals to women through these shelters to cushion the impact of the drought on the women and their families.
On her part, Masebo hailed the Japanese for playing a key role in the construction of health centres and upgrading of facilities into level 1 hospitals in some of Lusaka’s biggest constituencies through JICA. She said this had helped to decongest the University Teaching Hospital and the teaching hospitals in the Copperbelt.
She further thanked Japan for assisting Zambia’s health sector in the area of medical equipment and the drugs’ supply chain.
In a related undertaking, last month the Ministry of Health announced that it had partnered with the Ministry of Technology and Science and the Presidential Delivery Unit to digitalize health services, which is expected to reduce drug pilferage.
The digital system will provide online monitoring of drugs to ascertain stock availability at each health facility.
The Technology and Science minister Mr. Felix Mutati, who spoke at that event, said the public would have confidence in the Ministry of Health’s handling of drugs.
And Permanent Secretary for Technical Services Dr. Kennedy Lishimpi said the ministry had fast tracked the digitalization of all services to promote efficiency. These include medical records, human resources and procurement.