Editorial

EDITORIAL Better governance key to healthcare delivery in Africa

Healthcare governance is key to quality, affordable and accessible service delivery in the African countries. Africa is diverse and growing in terms of health care, while governments face a number of challenges, including lack of funds and poor infrastructure.

This has been recently compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic and other disease outbreaks, poverty and the brain drain of homegrown doctors. Varying wildly from country to country and region to region, public healthcare does exist but most urban populations will want to use the private sector or seek treatment abroad.

A country requires to have a number of key basic requirements such as people, processes, supplies and institutions to deliver health care services to those who need them. Good governance is considered a core component of resilient health systems, and while governments are the primary drivers of governance, non-state actors – from practitioners to civil society – are critical in making sure that health systems achieve goals of improved health status, improved health system responsiveness to people’s expectations and reduced financial risk to users of the health system.

That’s why in this issue of HealthCare Africa we focus not only on the government’s angle of ensuring attainment of healthcare through programmes like universal health coverage, but also look at the role the private providers play to improve health systems.

Healthcare today occupies a fragmented environment that needs to adapt to rapid changes in order to provide continuous and coordinated people-centred care. Further, delivery faces increasing public demand for greater access. Recent debates have emphasized how to make progress in strengthening the health systems, achieving universal health coverage and making progress towards meeting the SDGs.

This issue is privileged to have secured an executive interview with the Chief Administrative Secretary at the Ministry of Health Kenya Dr. Mercy Mwangangi and she takes us through some key achievements in health in Kenya in the past 5 years. She speaks also about pandemic management and preparedness, National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), Universal Health Coverage (UHC), training of healthcare workers and investments in healthcare.

IN THIS ISSUE – METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL AND MORE

Improving the delivery capacity of national health services in Africa goes beyond declarations to bringing in private sector investors to invest in health. One such company is Metropolitan Hospital, a level 5 hospital service serving the middle-class population in Nairobi’s Eastlands area. The CEO and Founder of the hospital Dr. K.K Gakombe takes us through the journey the hospital has taken since it came to being 26 years ago.

With our new section on Country Focus shedding a light on Zambia, you will get enlightened on the opportunities, challenges and market trends in one of the rising regional giants in Africa. Further, we have interviews with the First Lady of Bungoma County in Kenya, Ms. Caroline Wangamati on the status of healthcare in the county, plus a special coverage of leading digital health business in Nigeria, O’Health.

As we welcome you to the second issue of HealthCare Africa magazine, our goal remains: we are focused on becoming the leading voice in the health space in Africa by informing key decision makers of the business opportunities, innovations, research and trends they can take advantage of.

With a readership across the private and public, nonprofit, development partners, academic and research institutions in Africa and globally, we would like to be a key part of strengthening the health systems in Africa through our magazine, events and other activities.

We wish you a good read

Francis Juma Publisher

1 Editorial 5 News Updates 11 Supplier News & Innovations 13 Appointments Updates 14 Events Review

COMPANY FEATURES

20

METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL

Utilizing Technology to Transform Healthcare in Nairobi and its Environs

32

O'HEALTH

Nigerian telemedicine start-up opens new opportunity to improve access to healthcare

36

ETIHAD CARGO

Bridging the gap in global immunization against COVID-19

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEWS

42

DR. MERCY MWANGANGI

UHC and Covid-19 response lay foundation for better health in kenya

48

MRS. CAROLINE WANGAMATI

Bungoma’s blood donation advocate and ambassador 52 COUNTRY FOCUS: ZAMBIA Prioritizing health service provision as a pathway to achieving middle income status by 2030

60 THE REEMERGENCE OF POLIO How African countries battled and contained spread of the highly infectious virus