Tanzania:tandard treatment guide for release next month

HILDA MHAGAMA

Deputy Minister, Dr Faustine Ndugulile

HEALTH, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children Ministry will next month release the Standard Treatment Guidelines and National Essential Drug List for Tanzania (NEDLIT), to provide all medics with a set of treatment guiding principle.

The guidelines, which cover most of the common diseases in the country, aim at standardising the prescribing practices. This will simplify drug quantification, procurement and supply as well as achieve better rational therapeutics, the cardinal goal of all health care systems.

The Deputy Minister, Dr Faustine Ndugulile made the revelation in Dar es Salaam yesterday while officiating at the first Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) Scientific Conference. He said the guidelines are meant to be a pocket guide for quick reference, with their recommendations being valid for most presentations of the covered conditions.

Nevertheless, clinical judgment and experience will always be required for adjustment of treatment in individual cases when necessary. “It is the ministry’s policy that all health workers in the government facilities are strictly adhering to the guidelines, which are under last reviews in the ministry ... 95 per cent of the guidelines are already complete and will be released for use by next month,” he noted.

He added, “It has also come to our attention that some pharmaceutical companies are the one monitoring prescriptions in hospitals for their own interest, this is unacceptable, we want all hospitals to adhere to these guidelines and not otherwise.”

The deputy minister said the move will be done bearing in mind that health care resources are limited and drugs alone were in the 2017/18 fiscal year allocated 260bn/-, almost ten times compared to the previous year’s 30bn/- budget.

The two-day conference, under the theme, ‘Tertiary Healthcare Services: FromChallenges to Opportunities,’ will underpin the importance of strengthening tertiary services in the country and discuss how to turn many challenges that exist into opportunities for improving tertiary services.

Dr Ndugulile said all hospitals must make sure that they have sufficient drugs considered essential as outlined in the guideline. The guidelines also reflect the prescription of antibiotics, he said, as the new government’s plan will address the challenges faced by health workers who prescribe antibiotics irrationally and also introduce strict measures to control self-prescription of the medications.

The NEDLIT was first printed in 1991. The new edition of its kind will cover almost every common disease in the country. Earlier, MNH Executive Director, Prof Lawrence Mseru, said the primary goal of the conference was to provide updated information on where they are in the provision of tertiary services at the hospital and Tanzania.

“The spread of best practice and research findings is essential in improving care and outcome of people whose health we have been entrusted to take care of,” he noted.

Prof Mseru said the country should recognise tertiary hospital as research centres and participation in the development along with implementation of national health research policies. He further said it was possible for MNH to renovate the existing infrastructure to accommodate many patients, but the challenge was on getting sufficient funds for the purpose.