James White

Mainland Tanzania exemplifies the developing world’s struggle to achieve middle-income status while confronting widespread poverty and substantial health challenges. Tanzania’s struggle with HIV/AIDS, reproductive and child health, malaria, and tuberculosis are characterised by both positive recent trends and persistent challenges. A high disease burden coupled with finite public sector resources has led the government of Tanzania to increasingly seek innovative tools to protect the health and wellbeing of its citizens. Previous reform efforts have included decentralising decision making authority to local governments to improve the responsiveness of public sector programs and partnering with faith-based health facilities to expand the government’s reach into rural areas.In recent years, the government has increasingly tried to leverage the private health sector’s capacity to strengthen the Tanzanian health system—first by removing the ban on private practice in 1991 and then by emphasising PPPs in its national health policies and strategic plans. In response, the private health sector has grown and organised into several umbrella organisations, such as the Christian Social Services Commission (CSSC), the Association of Private Health Facilities in Tanzania (APHFTA), and the National Muslim Council of Tanzania (BAKWATA). Together, the public and private sectors have laid the policy groundwork for improved collaboration. Engaging the private sector beyond dialogue and operationalising PPPs has proven more difficult due to lingering distrust and a lack of communication between the sectors at lower levels. Currently, the private health sector is actively involved in the delivery of key health services, especially related to family planning, child health, and malaria. However, there are numerous private health sector providers and other actors that the Tanzanian government can better leverage to relieve the burden on public sector resources and produce better health outcomes for all Tanzanians.This assessment makes several recommendations to eliminate current obstacles, especially around the areas of the policy and governance, health financing, service delivery, pharmaceutical procurement, and human resources for health.

The first three novels in the incredible Sector General series.Welcome to SECTOR GENERAL - a colossal space hospital that attends to species ranging from an ultra-intelligent prune in a blob of syrup, to a teleportative brontosaurus, to a shape-shifting amoeba that constantly melts like an ice lolly on a summer's day. The hospital's staff is equally diverse, counting among its ranks an exoskeletal, insect-like assistant and a six-legged, elephantine surgeon. Then there is Dr Conway. An Earth-human, he is new to the job but will not let lingering first day jitters stop him from taking on his first big case: treating a hundred-unit gestalt of mind-sharing aliens. Throughout the course of the series, his quick thinking and passion for his profession allow Dr Conway to ascend from Junior Intern all the way to Senior Diagnostician. But this esteemed position is its own double-edged sword, for doctors of this rank have up to ten 'Education Tapes' permanently imprinted in their brains. While these recordings are invaluable when it comes to treating such a wide variety of life-forms, they also pass on the personality of the donor, the consequences of which can range from a mere aversion to a particular food to a concerning attraction towards members of other species . . . But the interstellar society of Sector General and beyond is ultimately a peaceful one where, aside from the occasional pre-arranged war to release tensions, the biggest blows come from the acerbic tongue of the hospital's Chief Psychologist, the enigmatic Major O'Mara.

The first three novels in the incredible Sector General series.Welcome to SECTOR GENERAL - a colossal space hospital that attends to species ranging from an ultra-intelligent prune in a blob of syrup, to a teleportative brontosaurus, to a shape-shifting amoeba that constantly melts like an ice lolly on a summer's day. The hospital's staff is equally diverse, counting among its ranks an exoskeletal, insect-like assistant and a six-legged, elephantine surgeon. Then there is Dr Conway. An Earth-human, he is new to the job but will not let lingering first day jitters stop him from taking on his first big case: treating a hundred-unit gestalt of mind-sharing aliens. Throughout the course of the series, his quick thinking and passion for his profession allow Dr Conway to ascend from Junior Intern all the way to Senior Diagnostician. But this esteemed position is its own double-edged sword, for doctors of this rank have up to ten 'Education Tapes' permanently imprinted in their brains. While these recordings are invaluable when it comes to treating such a wide variety of life-forms, they also pass on the personality of the donor, the consequences of which can range from a mere aversion to a particular food to a concerning attraction towards members of other species . . . But the interstellar society of Sector General and beyond is ultimately a peaceful one where, aside from the occasional pre-arranged war to release tensions, the biggest blows come from the acerbic tongue of the hospital's Chief Psychologist, the enigmatic Major O'Mara.