Zimbabwe’s per capita spending on health drops to US$20

THE Zimbabwean Government through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development allocated US$20 per citizen towards healthcare provision, which is US$25 lower than the US$45 it spent on an individual in 2021.

By Kudakwashe Pembere

This allocation or spending on a single person or single citizen is also known as per capita spending or per capita allocation.

Presenting a paper last Thursday at a Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) workshop om National Stakeholder Engagement and Consesus on Revitalising Primary Health Care in Zimbabwe, Dr Prosper Chitambara noted Zimbabwe’s per capita spending on health was exceptionally inadequate. According to calculations based on the Ministry of Finance figures, Dr Chitambara said Zimbabwe this year allocated US$20 from US$45 in 2021.

Now when we look at per capita spending on health. This looks at how much government is spending on one person on health. One citizen. Or per capita allocation if you want. So the average on SADC is US$140 per person or per citizen. So in Zimbabwe we are at about US$45. The per capita health spending or allocation in 2021.

“This is actually allocation because we don’t have the actual spending but we only have projections. So the allocation was about US$45 in 2021. And for this year the projection was US$20 so there is actually been a decline from the US$45 in 2021 to US$20 in 2022. So that is grossly inadequate,” he said.

He also said Zimbabwe was performing way below the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) average of US$140 and even farther than the standard US$271 per citizen.

“We said the average for SADC its US$140 then South Africa its around US$650, Zambia around USD90, Anglola around USD200. The benchmark in terms of how much we must be spending in order to achieve Universal Health Coverage by 2030, the target is US$271 per person. So we ought to be spending about US$271 per Zimbabwean on health if we are to achieve SDG3 or Universal Health Coverage by 2030. So that is a tall order. That is a challenge. There is a huge gap,” said Dr Chitambara.

In the CWGH position paper, it was noted that 93 percent of Zimbabweans do not have medical insurance. “Currently only 7 percent of Zimbabweans have access to medical insurance and this number is insufficient to ensure decent public healthcare,” said CWGH.