The majority of small to medium sized health care enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya are owned and operated by qualified practitioners who have completed a medical, nursing or pharmacy education, but who have never received formal training in business, managerial or financial concepts.  As a result, many private practitioners struggle to keep their businesses operational.

The private sector plays a big role in health. When medical practitioners opt to move from the public sector to open private health care facilities, there should be a balance between their desires to make profit that should be given without compromising the quality of services provided to patients. This then leads to discussions on finding the best approach to take to meet stakeholders’ needs from all ends.

On one hand, there’s the private sector whose aim is to provide services and make profit. On the other hand, is the government that represents the public sector, whose aim is to ensure citizens access necessary health care services. Then there’s the patient who seeks quality medical services. To satisfy these needs, it is important to make strategic decisions. Public-private partnerships’ strengthening has seen a number of countries; including Asian countries achieve this goal that many African countries still struggle to achieve.

At the ACA annual general council meeting held late last month, the chief executive officer of the Association of Private Health Facilities in Tanzania (APHFTA) and a member of ACA’s Network for Africa advisory board committee, Dr. Samuel Ogillograced the occasion as the chief guest and made a presentation on the important role played by the private sector in improving health outcomes. He emphasized on the need to strengthen public-private partnerships in implementing health programs and called on governments to embrace partnerships with the private sector in order to scale up health care delivery for their countries.

He also said that public health resource allocation should be based on quality health service delivery rather than the type of provider as African countries aim to achieve national and global health goals and ensure citizen’s health needs are met.

That said, what role shoulda patient, government, the private sector, civil societies or the donor community play to improve the quality health care services in Africa? Are we doing enough?