Poverty and Human Development Report 2009 - UNDP in Tanzania

Health Services Development Strategy 2007-2017, 48 although the main challenge will be to
ensure that new facilities are adequately staffed.
The MoHSW has adopted a new Strategy for Human Resources for Health. This has already
had an impact on the capacity of health training institutions. However, it is too early yet for this
training investment to show up in the number of new health workers employed. As Figure 33
shows, there has been very little increase in health staff recruited by Councils, and the number of
“new hires” is only a fraction of the 34,080 health workforce at local government level. Moreover,
staff attrition (mainly retirements) can be expected to total between 1,000 and 1,500 per year, 49
suggesting little net change in the local government health workforce since 2002. Moreover,
staff attrition is expected to accelerate due to the unbalanced (older) age structure of the health
worker population. This situation augurs poorly in addressing the current human resource crisis
in the health sector let alone the greater staffing needs associated with the MMAM. To make real
progress, local councils would need to more than double the number of staff that they recruit
(and retain) each year.
Figure 33: New Health Staff Hired by Local Government Authorities, 2002 - 2008
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 to
Sept.
Source: President’s Office – Public Service Management (PO-PSM), GoT payroll database,
LGA health staff, (Sept. 2008), analysed by year of hire.
48 Commonly known by Swahili acronym MMAM (Mpango wa Maendeleo wa Afya ya Msingi).
49 Calculations by P. Smithson.
CLUSTER II- GOAL 2
73