WHAT DR DIANA ATWINE, PERMANENT SECRETARY MINISTRY OF HEALTH WANTS LOCAL GOVERNMENTS TO FULFILL IN THE 2023-2024 FINANCIAL YEAR (Prioritize Health Promotion, Disease Prevention, Hygiene and Sanitation)

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WHAT DR DIANA ATWINE, PERMANENT SECRETARY MINISTRY OF HEALTH WANTS LOCAL GOVERNMENTS TO FULFILL IN THE 2023-2024 FINANCIAL YEAR (Prioritize Health Promotion, Disease Prevention, Hygiene and Sanitation)

By Mercy Ahimbisibwe

Each financial year, the Ministry of Health gives out guidelines to all local governments for the health sub-program and implementation of the grants to each health facility under decentralization. These guidelines to local governments provide them with information that is used during budgeting and implementation.

Dr Diana Atwine the Permanent Secretary Mimistry of Health says during the financial year 2023-2024 the health sub-program under decentralization will continue to re-prioritize HEALTH PROMOTION, DISEASE PREVENTION, HYGIENE and SANITATION (COMMUNITY HEALTH INTERVENTIONS).

“30% of non-wage recurrent has been earmarked to undertake activities related to these priorities areas across the spectrum for example the local government health office, General hospital and each lower level health facility”, said Dr Diana Atwine

Dr Diana Atwine announced Results Based Financing (RBF) to Health Center IIIs and Health Center IVs under the UgIFT program shall commence during the Financial year. RBF rewards health facilities in cash or provides equipment and materials if pre-defined results have been achieved. It also subsidizes fees for patients and provides incentives to health workers.

RBF payments allow the health facilities to reinvest the revenue and provide new and better quality health services. She says in order to improve service delivery in health facilities a new staff structure has been approved by the Ministry of Public Service to cater for increased staff in General hospitals, health centre IVs and Health Center IIIs.

However, the implementation of this structure will be done when funding is available and in a phased manner.

Dr Diana Atwine ended her letter by appealing to Local Governments, “Lastly, allow me to re-echo my appeal that during 2023-2024, we all focus on immediately reducing the incidences of Communicable and Non-communicable diseases and mounting effective responses to public health emergencies. These include Covid19 pandemic, improving and sustaining high coverage of healthcare services to reduce the cost of healthcare in localities using a multi-sectoral approach”.

I, therefore, call upon all local government accounting officers to ensure that the health sub-programs’ detailed work plans and estimates are finalized and activities implemented on time and in line with the budget guidelines. The Health Sub-program grants to Local Governments are divided into 5 categories namely;

1- The conditional Wage Grant

2- Conditional None Wage Grant

3- The Conditional Development Grant

4- The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) subvention and

5- The GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance(GAVI) Health Systems Strengthening (HSS2) Subvention. Local governments are required to provide timely accountabilities for these grants