Government expenditure on health per capita amounts to $130
per person, which represents 4.5 per cent of the national Gross Domestic
Product. This ranks the country third after Seychelles ($382) and Botswana
($135) per person. Unfortunately, this investment has often not been utilised
adequately to its full potential. Financial resources have to be properly
managed in order to meet the country's health development initiatives. Medical
services in the country lack innovations and they can no longer address the
needs of the people (Health, 2007:21).
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A transformation in the health care industry is required to
achieve the four major target initiatives such as raising the number of both
private and public hospitals so that the entire population can have access to
quality care. This includes enhancing the health of mothers, newborns and
children, since healthy mothers are more likely to have healthy babies and
healthy children are the future of the country. Access and affordable medicines
need to be provided to all people and a universal medical cover based on the
European model has to be implemented to the whole Gabonese population. The idea
is to increase the number of people's accessibility to proper medical services
(Health, 2007:21).
The government of Gabon in collaboration with the French Aid
Agency, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Population Funds
has sponsored in total 14 hospitals to enhance mothers, newborns and children's
health in the country. This initiative is aimed at recruiting more medical
experts such as gynaecologists and obstetricians to improve women's health. In
addition to this, the local government planned to create more health care
infrastructures that include 9 of the local hospitals, 46 health centres and a
network of 455 rural health clinics spread around the country by the end of
2020. Since 2007, women and children`s health has become one of the major
priorities in the country's health system. Enhancing maternal and children's
health is a Millennium Development Goal. As a result, that strategy has become
a priority in the country since 2007 (World Health Organisation, 2007:22).
Vaccination campaigns against poliomyelitis in infants and
tuberculosis were other initiatives undertaken by UNICEF to improve people's
living conditions in Gabon. A common problem affecting the adult population was
the spread of malaria and gastrointestinal diseases in the country since 2005.
In the northern province of Gabon in Woleu-Ntem, over 60 per cent of the
patients admitted in hospitals suffered from infections caused by mosquitos.
Fever and acute diarrhoea were among other major sicknesses affecting adults
and the young population as well. Libreville, the main capital became mostly
affected with 8.1 per cent of people affected by fever and diarrhoea. To tackle
the spread of the pandemic, a mobile medicine strategy was developed by the
government to prevent further spread of these sicknesses. This suggested that
more medical professionals would travel around the country to deliver care to
outpatients and undertake vaccination drives. These mobile doctors were
employed to provide health services coverage in the entire country, including
the less populated regions. The major
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sicknesses targeted represented poliomyelitis, tuberculosis,
diarrhoea, HIV/aids disease and malaria (Health, 2007:21).
An additional strategy was developed by the government to
build a university teaching hospital near the main capital of Libreville in
2007. This was done in collaboration with the Japanese medical group,
Tokushakai that has a particular interest in building hospitals in developing
countries. Cooperation agreements have also been established with countries
such as France, Canada and Egypt to provide adequate training and expertise to
home-grown medical professionals. This resulted in an increase of 34 per cent
of the human resource for the medical sector from 1999 to 2007. Since 2003, a
particular attention was given to the training, education, remuneration and a
continuing deployment of the medical professionals in the Gabonese Health Care
System. In 2007, over 200 medical professionals were recruited from Egypt and
Cuba to tackle the personnel shortage in the health care sector (World Health
Organisation, 2007:23).
In 2011, the government developed an important strategy to
tackle the high cost of medicines in the country. The Turnkey laboratory was
established near the main capital of Libreville to tackle malaria and HIV. The
project aimed at producing generic pills to the population. Government
expenditures to establish the laboratory amounted to approximately 6.5 million
euros. Building this facility was part of the country's health care strategy to
enable patients at all economic levels to access adequate treatment. The
initiative suggested that the newly established laboratory aimed to fill the
demands of the people of Gabon, but it could also fill demands of the whole
central African region. With a total production of 200 000 drugs every hour,
the laboratory may actually be able to supply drugs to all the African states
that are part of Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) with a
global market of 30 million people (Gabon Poverty and Reduction Strategy Paper,
2012:23). The new laboratory provides paracetamol, tuberculosis and
anti-malaria drugs which actually encounter no resistance. The initiative was
seen as an innovation in the pharmaceuticals industry in the central African
region. The facility includes over 30 Gabonese health professionals, and raw
materials quality control is conducted at a chemical plant in France (Health,
2007:23).
