MoH budget shoots up by 18.3%
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday March 14, 2014 16:38
Making the presentation in Parliament on Wednesday, the minister asked for an additional P806,871,360 or 18.3 percent of this year’s recurrent budget, bringing the ministry’s proposed recurrent budget to a total of P5,223,221,960.
Dr Seakgosing said that the increase is motivated by a number of factors such as the approval of the proposed positions for the teaching hospital and IHS output, increase in employer portion of medical aid premiums, maintenance of health facilities buildings and equipment, provision for ARV therapy first line drug and replacement of some boarded vehicles.
From the budget the department of clinical services will be awarded the largest share of P3,780, 338,320.
The department takes the bulk of the mandate of the ministry, housing all government hospitals, clinics, primary health care facilities, central medical stores, national health laboratory, as well as maintenance of facilities, medical and surgical equipment.
The ministry headquarters has been allocated the second largest share of P603,617,540. The headquarters administers human resources and houses institutes of health sciences. Further, it is within the headquarters that the ministry caters for the employer portion of medical aid subscriptions for all civil servants.
The department of HIV and AIDS Prevention gets P539,423,820 due to the scaling down of the ARV first line drug and the relocation of the bulk of the department’s budget from National Aids Coordinating Agency (NACA).
The remaining P299,782,280 of the recurrent budget will be shared among the department of public health, health sector relations & partnership, policy planning, monitoring and health inspectorate.
The minister also requested P190,176,000 as the ministry’s development budget for the year 2014/2015. A total of P9,887,000 goes to computerisation. The integrated patient management system continues to be rolled out while the networking and cabling of 24 hour clinics and clinics with maternity is also ongoing and expected to be completed in the financial year 2014/2015.
The ministry consultancies get P2 million, Institutes of Health Sciences P30,393,000 while P105,896.000 is needed for improvement of health facilities. Primary health facilities will be getting P42 million, for the construction of staff houses, electrification of primary health facilities as well as construction of Kachikau phase 2.