Health in Ethiopia - Overview of HSDP I, II and III

Overview of HSDP I, II and III

The three consecutive HSDPs that have been implemented since 1997/98 are reviewed here with respect to achievements, implementation challenges and lesson learned and doable recommendations for further health sector planning. Records from the implementation of HSDP I and II showed encouraging improvements both in the health service coverage as well as in the utilization of services at all levels of the health care system of Ethiopia. In terms of physical health facilities, the improvements have been the construction of additional 3,135 New Health Posts reaching 2899 in 2003/04 . This was from an insubstantial of 76 HPs in 1996/97. The number of Health Centers has also increased from the 1996/07 level of 243 to 519 in 2003/04. Similarly the number of Hospitals has increased from 87 in 1996/97 to 126 in 2003/04. There have been also significant increases in the availability of health workers of all professional categories among which the increase in the number of Nurses and Health officers have been most remarkable. The end phase in the implementation of HSDP II saw the development of new strategic initiative that brought in the inception, successful piloting, and the launching of HEP at the national level with the aim of universal PHC coverage and institutionalization of the community health services at health post level in the midst of villages. The program has required the training and deployment of all female HEWs, and by the conclusion of HSDP II, there have been 2,800 trained and deployed HEWs with 7,138 already enrolled for training in 2004/5 .

In terms of progresses in the implementation of priority health programs including prevention and control of infectious communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB, the recorded achievement showed that there have been notable sign of improvements during these periods, especially family planning services such as contraceptive coverage which has shown a remarkable leap from the 1996/97 level of 4% to 25% in 2004/05 . The following sections provide detailed account of performance of HSDP III in priority programs and health system issues. Health service Delivery and quality of care.