MUHAS new medical teaching facility a development milestone

taking into account that it is billed to hugely improve health services delivery to the public.

MUHAS Vice-Chancellor, Prof Ephata Kaaya, said at a top ministerial inspection function on Friday that the 61 million US dollars facility would have one of the country’s best hospitals. The project would be a driving force towards curbing the shortage of health experts in the country.

Tanzania will no longer need to send at a high cost many patients to India and other countries for referral treatments.

The hospital will ne having enough local specialist doctors and is expected to be fully equipped, fitted with state-of-the-art laboratory and diagnostic facilities.

Notably, the VC said the completion of the project will increase student enrolment in medical and allied sciences to 15,000 from the current 4,010 annually.

This is a sea change in the number of students on health matters and thus in availability of doctors all the country in due course.

The project has uplifted the feelings of many among members of the public, hopeful that hospital congestion becomes something of the past.

Health is a state of physical, social and mental wellbeing, where one’s health status helps to show the welfare of a person and in a broader sense, the welfare of a nation. A healthy nation is a progressive nation socially and economically.

On the other hand, low health status is a key manifestation of poverty, with inadequate health services, lack of food, safe water, income and education being inter-linked in nature.

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) health and medical statistics incorporate a variety of data types.

The most common statistics reported are characterized as those which are vital personal data (birth, death, marriage, divorce rates), morbidity (incidence of disease in a population) and mortality (the number of people who die of a certain disease compared with the total number of people).

Other common statistical data reported are health care costs, the demographic distribution of disease based on geographic, ethnic and gender variables, and data on the socio-economic status and education of health care professionals.

Improvements in health service delivery leads to a strong nation with adequate productive capacities.

This would ensure that alarming statistics on morbidity – relative frequency of disease, illness, injuries and disabilities in a population – are cut down as we go on.

As a reminder, disease is a disorder with a specific cause and recognizable signs and symptom, as any bodily abnormality or failure to function properly, except when it results directly from physical injury.

Illness refers to poor health resulting from disease of body or mind, while injury is a disease or impairment of a person's body or mind.

So a major improvement in medical care, as a science and art of healing that encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness, is of tremendous importance.

It’s the nucleus of a healthy nation. A nation without well established diagnostic facilities is like a nation without security and defense. It’s a shabby nation.

Indeed, the Mlongazila project is a sign of a progressive economy with a clear vision to ensure we embrace the goal of a healthy population as a key parameter in national development.

This facility adds to other health facilities being put in place across the country, along with improvements in existing facilities and assurance of supplies.

We have reports of the construction of a teaching hospital at the University of Dodoma with a state-of-the-art facility, a referral hospital in Singida and a modern hospital in Chanika, on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.

These initiatives complement one another and with other facilities run by the private sector; they will certainly take medical care in the country to the next level.