Project News

Opening Remark (Director, Policy and Planning)

The Project Inauguration Meeting was held at the Conference Hall of the Sokoine Agricultural University, Morogoro, from 25th to 26th January 2012. The two day meeting was held in order to introduce the outline of the project and contents of the project activities and was followed by an orientation programme on the hospital reform on the 27th of January, 2012. Among the 91 participants were 17 officials from Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW), 2 officials from Prime Minister's Office for Regional Administration and Local Government (PMORALG), Regional Health Management Team (RHMT) members and Medical Officers in Charge from 21 regions (total 64), development partners (3 organisations) and a representative from JICA Tanzania office. The inclusion of Medical Officers in Charge was intentional to emphasize the cooperation between the RHMT and Regional Referral Hospital in the second phase project.

The main contents featured on the first day were; the introduction of the project, the presentation on the roles and functions of RHMT by the MOHSW, presentation by the RHMT Dar es Salaam on their practice and the review of activities by each region (group discussion.) The second day's programme began with the regions made presentation on the outcome of their group discussion, followed by the current status and issues of annual planning by the RHMTs, and the presentation on the planned training programmes by the project. On the third day, as mentioned earlier, the Hospital Reform Team of the MOHSW led the orientation programme on the progress of hospital reform and its direction.

Plenary Discussion

During the meeting, based on the progress and issues on the ground, following points were raised. 1) the strengthening of collaboration and information sharing between PMORALG which is the supervisory authority to the local governments including regional and council teams, and MOHSW, 2) Review of the document showing roles and functions of RHMT, 3) more effective human resource development approach including follow up after the training activities, 4) the issues surrounding planning by the regions and the ways to improve them, and 5) the strengthening the activities with focus on the sustainability beyond project completion.

In the orientation programme for RHMT on the hospital reform the challenge of slow pace of reform at the central level shown through the fact that there is no increase in human, material or budgetary resources to the regional hospitals while they are up-graded to Regional Referral Hospitals.

Through the three-day programme including lively discussion among participants, the meeting did not only served its primary purpose of introducing the project. It became a great opportunity for the RHMT members to understand the current situation, discuss the issues and for the project to gather important suggestions. The outcome of the meeting is to be presented to the senior management of the MOHSW.

Group Work 1

Group Work 2

Comments from PMORALG (Assistant Director for Sector Coordination)

Closing remarks（Head of Health Sector Resource Secretariat, MOHSW)