African Governments should increase health budgets

The budgetary allocation in most African countries for the health sector leaves much to be desired, because some of our governments give more priority to other sectors.

Health is a cross-cutting issue, and it should be everybody’s business.

For a country to have an effective sound health system, the sector needs to be adequately financed in order to meet the demand of the people.

We have to know that diseases are emerging every day, and to be preventable African governments must take the right stance, and invest a lot in health to address some of these challenges facing our continent.

If African governments want to meet the health targets for the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, they need to work extremely hard.

We have a big task ahead of us because our health sectors are facing a serious attrition rate, with most of our doctors and nurses leaving Africa for Europe in search of greener pastures and better service.

All these problems are due to the low funding of the health sector in Africa, and the lack of motivation for the staff working in the Ministries of Health.

We know that governments alone cannot do it all; they also need the support of partners and individuals to complement their support in this area.

However, for African nations to forge ahead with progress in the health sector, all hands must be put on deck.