Strengthening healthcare in the Lake Zone region
As our work at Bugando has continued to progress, we have recognized that the weaknesses of the surrounding health system in the Lake Zone region limit the breadth of our impact.
Deficient referral systems and poor quality of care in the lower level facilities that feed into Bugando, the region’s pinnacle health facility, limit Bugando’s capacity to deliver high quality care and retain doctors.
In order to fully develop Bugando University College of Health Sciences (BUCHS) into a first class healthcare and training facility and to sustainably improve healthcare, we are expanding our efforts into the regional health system which serves thirteen million Tanzanians.
Our Lake Zone Initiative will launch in November and will focus on three main areas: capacity building at Weill Bugando, systems strengthening across the Bugando catchment area, and strategic development of healthcare worker training capacity across the region.
With the help of consultants from McKinsey & Company’s global public health practice, the initial diagnostic phase of the Lake Zone Initiative will develop a detailed assessment of Lake Zone health systems issues through extensive in-country interviews and site visits.
The evaluation will cover the six regions for which BUCHS is the sole referral hospital: Mwanza, Shinyanga, Kagera, Kigoma, Tabora and Mara. This area covers approximately one third of Tanzania’s geography and population. We hope to complete this diagnostic in mid-2008 and begin work on developing an operational plan which will list work required at a blueprint level.
Central to this initiative is our approach. Working from a public-private partnership model, we are building a strategic coalition that unites private, corporate, institutional, and governmental partners. The initiative will draw upon coalition members, not only for financial support, but also for the extensive expertise that they can contribute.
Our ability to strengthen capacity at Bugando and have lasting impact requires developing strategies that confront key weaknesses of the Lake Zone health system. Our dual objectives are to improve the quality and accessibility of health training in Tanzania and to create replicable solutions for other African health systems.
The Tanzanian government, both at the national and regional levels, has offered active support and will be a key stakeholder in this partnership. We look forward to this new phase in our work in Tanzania.