Dedza East legislator, Juliana Lunguzi, has faulted the government for failing to invest in the health sector to reduce the disease burden in the country.
Lunguzi, who is also Chairperson of the Health Committee of Parliament, on Monday expressed concern that a significant part of the budget for the health sector comes from development partners, who have specific areas of target.
“The donor community covers 74 percent of the health budget, mostly in areas of reproductive health, immunisation and nutrition. Other disease [areas] are not funded. If you look at the disease burden, there is evidence that cases of non-communicable diseases are going up because the country is failing to control them. We have kidney diseases. There is no proper equipment to help those who need dialysis in our hospitals,” Lunguzi said.
While lauding the Executive arm of the government for initiating construction of a cancer centre in Lilongwe,Lunguzi accused the government of failing to invest in cancer prevention and early detection.
“Not everybody who gets cancer will get treated. We need to have preventive and early detection services at health centre [level] but nobody is investing in the facilities. I have seen, in the budget, that we want another cancer centre in Mzuzu and Blantyre. Why can’t we put such preventive and early detection services at each and every facility?” she said
In response, Civic Education Minister, Grace Chiumia, said the government is working on intensifying sensitisation campaigns.
“We have put in place preventive measures, one of which being cancer awareness campaigns,” Chiumia said.
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