New plan to boost hospitals’ emergency services

Dar es Salaam. The government plans to reduce by 40 per cent deaths that occur due to patients’ failure to receive emergency medicine services on time.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Dr Mpoki Ulisubisya, said this in Dar es Salaam yesterday during a conference on emergency medicine.

“We intend to establish an emergency medicine department at every district hospital across the country to avoid 40 per cent of deaths that occur due to lack of emergency services support,” he noted.

According to him, after district hospitals, they will ensure every health centre in each region is equipped with emergency services.

He said the government was not just constructing an emergency department, but also laying down a strategy to educate emergency specialists in emergency care.

He said so far 27 emergency specialists had received emergency care training and others were still undergoing similar training. He explained that the number of specialists in the field was expected to increase to 36.

“Starting 2018, we [the government] intend to train other specialists to increase emergency services countrywide,” he noted.

Dr Ulisubisya noted that lack of medical equipment was still a challenge in Tanzania.

For his part, Emergency Medical Department (EMD) Head of Department, Dr Juma Mfinanga, said 25 per cent of the number of patients admitted to Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) were accident victims.

He noted that the number of accident patients admitted to the MNH was still a challenge, but the presence of the EMD at the hospital had helped them to reduce the number of deaths caused by accidents.

Apart from that, he said they worked hard to ensure emergency specialists were well-equipped to provide the services accordingly.