Just recently MamaYe has supported the district in another assessment exercise, as a response to a poor scoring on the Budget Preparation domain which was mainly due to lack of consultation and liaising with CSOs and other stakeholders. Based on the idea of having a fully participated district budget for the oncoming financial year, MamaYe proposed a recommendation stating that the District Health Office (DHO) and the Council secretariat should consult all stakeholders for the 2017/2018 budget, which is still underway.
As a consequence of both the low scoring and the recommendation, a DHO embarked on its process to develop the District Implementation Plan (DIP). In collaboration with the Health Facility Advisory Committees, MamaYe Malawi supported the three-day consultation process of the 12 government health facilities included in the Rumphi District Health Office which included four QuIC sites.
The facilitation team comprised of officers from the district health office with diverse background and who are currently involved in the preparation of the district implementation plan (DIP) for the health sector.
The meetings were very participatory as the participants were able to contribute effectively with those issues they found to be very pertinent to improving the health services in the facilities: The involvement of the participants makes for a strong case in in ensuring that the budgeting process should be more engaging and have inputs from the wider community to get the best results.
The construction of staff houses and maternity wing at both Bolero and Jalawe health centres;, construction of a water tank at Bolero health centre to ensure constant water supply; a provision of uninterrupted electricity supply and purchase of equipment and drugs were some of the issues identified and prioritized.
Mathias Chatuluka, MamaYe Team Leader, commended the ownership spirit of the participants and asked all members to critically look at the issues coming on the floor and debate them to come up with the real ones affecting the health of the people in their communities.
It is expected that the health sector in Rumphi will continue using the results of the last HBTA scorecard to improve the process. The effort will be oriented in addressing the lack of information on the amount of funds that CSOs are pumping into the health sector - not just in Rumphi but across the country, as this is actually considered to be one of the major issues.
The engagement of CSOs in declaring the available resources allocated for health in the district will be then one of the main objectives. It is also estimated that once all the problems are clearly included in the DIP, the plan will get reviewed by the Health and Environment Committee of the Council.
By doing so the aim is to create a more transparent and accountable environment in the district.