The Minister of Health, Mr. Selibe Mochoboroane on Monday officiated the Resource Mapping Exercise training at Hlotse in Leribe.

Addressing the participants from different ministries and World Health Organization (WHO) representatives, the Minister said the Resource Mapping Exercise is intended to identify different stakeholders in the delivery of health services with a focus on national health security.

He said there cannot be a clear progress if ministries work in silos, saying unity is power.

“I am told that during the pandemic fund application, there were millions of dollars that seemed to be present in the country’s pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response,” he stated.

He indicated that this observation was an eye opener to the Ministry of Health and the exercise they are engaging in this week will provide more clarity on the status of resources for National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS) implementation.

“Even though the country did not get the grant, the application revealed that there are lots of resources that need to be brought together for the optimum use of such,” he stated.

He indicated that each was given the Resource Mapping Tool to fill, both partners and government thus reflecting what areas are being worked on with how much.

Mr. Mochoboroane highlighted that this exercise intends to appreciate who is doing what, where, with how much for how long as this will minimise the duplication of efforts, but rather make use of the resources to cover all Technical Areas of the JEE and most importantly, facilitate that no one gets left behind in terms of access quality health security related services including the most disadvantaged and vulnerable further taking into account the Gender and Human Rights dimensions of the services provided.

Moreover, he said the government has a mandate to provide quality health services for all irrespective of geographical location, level of wealth, gender, and educational level but to everyone, saying this can only be achieved when both the government and the partners pull together to address the plan that was developed based on the JEE and other assessments.

In conclusion, the Minister said from now onwards, everyone should drive towards implementation of the NAPHS and all priorities of the government.

Speaking at the same event, the Director General of Primary Health Services, Dr Nyane Letsie said the participants are frontliners and this says if an emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic arises again, they will have to work together to overcome it.

Dr Letsie pointed out that local authorities such as chiefs should be considered as important as during the pandemic the ministry managed to track down patients through them.

Echoing the same sentiments, WHO representative to Lesotho, Dr Richard Banda said all those participating are expected to operate within certain principles and priorities such as the Primary Care Approach, equity, community involvement and integrated approach.

Dr Banda mentioned that they align with the needs of the country, citing inter-sectoral collaboration, gender and human rights as well as transparency.

NAPHS is the medium-term strategic plan for improving IHR (2005) core capacities with its results summarized through the Theory of Change.

Amongst the expected are strengthened prevention and preparedness for hazards, enhanced detection of events, reporting and investigation and timely and effective response to public health events.

This is expected to lead to reduced mobility, mortality and other socio-economic impacts of outbreaks and other public health emergencies and sustained improvements in national development.

Source: LENA 10/10/2023