Wednesday, October 13, 2010

PBF Rungwe Training was a Success!!

PBF Rungwe Pilot project conducted successfully ten days training on PBF  in Rungwe from 27th September to 7th October 2010.  The training venue was at Catholic Youth Centre, located in Tukuyu township, about 1. 5 km from Tukuyu town centre. The training involved 14 health staff under FBOs facilities and 6 health staff under DMO office- total 20 participants.  The training had three (3) objectives; these were: To provide participants with an understanding of the relationships between national policies, health policy and economic policies and how they are influenced by Performance Based Financing.  The second objective being to understand the objectives, theories, best practices and instruments of Performance Base Financing and the last objective was to provide participants with knowledge and skills to enable them to improve the implementation of PBF in their settings.  The training was coordinated by facilitators from KCMC, ETC-The Netherlands, HDP Rwanda, MOHSW and from CSSC- Competence centre. Moreover, the training was colorfully opened by the DMO Rungwe District – Dr. N. Sungwa. In his speech, he thanked EU, Cordaid and CSSC for choosing Rungwe to be the pilot area for PBF project.  He added that, the district is proud of the project and working in collaboration with the project so that it becomes successful.  Moreover, he explained that this is a new concept in Rungwe.  He added that some three years back the government introduced similar project called P4P, which unfortunately was not successful. He promised that the Government is eagerly learning PBF in order to make it successful and thus improve health services provision in Rungwe district. He emphasized that, besides being new, PBF approach has appeal to the government as the right approach in improving health services delivery. Finally, he urged the participants to be attentive and inquisitive during the training as they will definitely be trainers to their peers in the District. Additionally, on Service Agreement he pointed out that the government is doing all it can to have service Agreement in the district, though the process would take some time. Moreover, it is worth noting that this training was blessed to have three key facilitators. The first one was Mr. Christian Habineza from HDP- Rwanda.  During the training he shared his extensive experiences on implementing PBF projects in Rwanda and presented best practices through case studies.  To a great extent, that was quite important as the participants realized that it is all possible and that PBF is a practical Health financing model. Another trainer was   Dr. Albert from the Netherlands who is an international consultant. His rich experiences on East Africa  health care services was a great asset to the training in general  and his knowledge on  PBF in Particular added value to the training.  The above combination enabled the participants to grasp normally considered very academic lessons on: Socio- Economic Policies, Micro-Economics, Entrepreneurship of health facilities, understanding Costs, Comprehensive Council planning and Linking PBF with Service Agreement into practical issues on health. And the last one was Dr. Anna from MOHSW. Her participation added weight to the training, that the Government and in particular the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOSHSW) is supporting PBF as health financing Model in the Tanzania.  She presented two topics:  Tanzania Health Sector Reform and PPP. In total 24 topics were presented during ten days PBF Rungwe training.  It was noted during daily evaluation that the training need to be customized as there are areas which need more refining to suit the environment.  Generally, the training was quite successful as indicated in the final evaluation and the training objectives were met.  Now, the pilot area i.e.  Rungwe District is getting more PBF pioneers and supporters.  They are expected to bring changes in their facilities. See photo below.                            
PBF training Participants group photo after official opening- Seated on the
Front line is the Guest of honor-DMO Rungwe,Dr. Sungwa(in the Middle),
 Dr. Manongi – Course to the right side, Chairperson for the Course to the
 Left  Mr. Christian on the far right corner

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Facility Governing Committee establishment and Training

It is a pleasure to express that, PBF Rungwe pilot project has enable all 12 health facilities under faith based organizations in Rungwe to establish Facilities Governing Committees.  This was a result of PBF inception meeting recommendations in June 2010, despite being in the Action plan for the project for the first year i.e. 2010.  Now each health facility has a facility Governing committee. In regard to gender representation, at least one third are women.  Moreover, the committees are all trained on their roles and responsibilities plus the basic concepts on PBF. The training took three days in total in three zones: The first zone included five health facilities around Tukuyu area, whereby the training was held on 16th Sept 2010 at Tukuyu Youth Centre, and the second zone was in Mwakaleli, about 40 km away, whereby three facilities had one day training at Mwakaleli centre and was held on 17th Sept 2010.  The third and last zone was for four health facilities around Itete about 45 km away from Tukuyu township.  The venue was at Itete hospital and was conducted on 18th Sept 2010.  The trainings were facilitated by:  Zonal PBF Coordinator and Mr. Japhet Kalindu who is a Zonal trainer for facility Governing Committees.  The training enabled the facility governing committees to better understand their roles and responsibilities in managing health facilities.  It is my hope that they will be an important link for community voice in health services delivery in the facilities. See the group photo for the facility Governing committee training held in Tukuyu.
                                                    Group photo of the trained facility Governing Committees from 5 facilities on 16th Sept 2010.