Scientific Study: Reforming Health Sector, Necessity [Archives:2000/38/Health]

Talal Al-Alimi
Manager of Personnel Department at the Health Office, Capital Secretariat

One of the priorities of administrative reform is outlining structures of government organs and units in addition to an accurate specification of jobs in that unit or organ.
The administrative and financial reforms undertaken by the Ministry of Public Health, including entitling more privileges to working staff of the Ministry, is a milestone that should be paid its due attention so that it can be an ideal example followed by other government organs.
All health units and centers in the countryside as well as cities have been restructured. Every unit and center has been introduced to specific activities to carry out in the concerned area. In this context, Ministry of Health has classified such units and centers by 6 levels as follows; health units, health centers, mother and children centers, health complexes, rural clinics and central hospitals. Besides, health staff is being redistributed among those health institutions according the needs of the meant areas. But specialization and number of workers needed in the respective area should be taken into consideration. Therefore, there should be cooperation with the Ministry of Civil Service and Administration Reform to support those steps and to find solutions to problems posed during the implementation process.
Below are the most important points in the structure of the Ministry of Health:
1- Types of the 6th level, central hospitals, were specified according to number of beds and those of the 4th level, rural clinics, were specified according to population. Meanwhile, there has been no measurement to determine the types of other levels, resulting in a disagreement with the host areas needs. Sometimes doctors are heavily burdened, leading in the long run to the closure of the respective institution.
2- There is a lack of necessary buildings that can ensure peoples access to health services.
3- There is also an absence of practical solutions to benefit from the overflow of cadres by distributing them among centers which suffer lack of cadre.
4- Graduates of institutes and universities are not properly guided and sometimes they are jobless.
5- No funds required to establish necessary and needed health centers are allocated.
There had to be a thorough plan before the execution in order to guarantee the success of restructuring process.
To conclude, reform attempts should be complete and they should be carried out at the same time so that they can achieve the desired goals.

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