The Sunday Mail
Harmony Agere Extra Reporter —
ZIMBABWEANS’ life expectancy has increased by 37 percent during the past 15 years mostly due to improved access to medical insurance, recent data from the World Bank and KPMG shows.
As such, Zimbabwe’s life expectancy at birth for total population now stands at 58 years, up from 37 years in 2001.
The upturn is more than double the average for the sub-Saharan region as a whole (16 percent) despite the country experiencing challenges in public health institutions during recent years.
“This is mostly due to increased spending power, which is fuelled by a rising middle class, but also due to the fact that employers, including large corporates and multinationals, are acknowledging the benefits of contributing towards their employees’ health insurance premiums,” says Andrew Schwulst CEO of Liberty Health, a South African financial services firm.
Schwulst says employers now see the value of investing in the health of employees, thereby giving them access to facilities which are efficiently run and well-resourced through medical insurance.
Better treatment of infectious diseases and HIV also played a vital role in increasing life expectancy for Zimbabwe due to improved access to anti-retrovirals and behavioural change.
This is also confirmed by the latest Demographic and Health Survey which shows that HIV prevalence rate in the country declined from 18 percent to 14 percent over the past 10 years
There has also been significant progress in the fight against malaria. According to the World Bank, life expectancy acts as an indicator in areas that needs Government’s attention.
“Mortality rates for different age groups and overall mortality indicators (life expectancy at birth or survival to a given age) are important indicators of health status in a country,” says the latest World Bank report.
“Because data on the incidence and prevalence of diseases are frequently unavailable, mortality rates are often used to identify vulnerable populations. And they are among the indicators most frequently used to compare socioeconomic development across countries.”
Wilberforce Masunungure, a local human resources consultant, said the worldwide demand for human capital explains the importance of a longer life span.
“If you go anywhere in the world two things, the working population and the consuming population, generally influence growth,” he said.
“You need people to exploit a resource and you need people to consume the product. So with a life expectancy of, let’s say 37, your population growth will be very minimal and you won’t have good numbers for significant growth.
“So the cost trickles down and at the end of the day you will realise that as a nation you are not growing much, especially economically.”
But the gains are not unique to Zimbabwe only. Liberty Health said life expectancy in Africa at large has also made significant strides.
“Since the Millennium Development Goals came into being in 2000, various reports have been published around healthcare achievements in Africa,” Schwulst says.
“One of the most notable improvements is that sub-Saharan countries have collectively increased the region’s overall life expectancy by 16 percent over the past decade and a half.”
KPMG expects the trend to continue given that the future of healthcare in Africa lies in health insurance products that are provided by private medical companies.
“Covering your employees’ health means you cover your most important asset, this results in the reduction of their financial stress, which in turn results in boosted loyalty and happier staff — essentially, it’s insurance to your firm,” says Schwulst.
Experts concur that more and more corporates and multi-nationals with operations in Africa, local or international, are contributing towards employees’ medical aids.
People who are covered tend to see a doctor sooner, which can save tens of thousands of dollars a year. It is also agreed that the longer it takes for someone to see a doctor, the more risks of complications and the longer it takes for them to get healthy.
Healthcare insurance means that employees are likely to go for more regular health checks. Outside health insurance, studies also show that improved lifestyle such as exercising, healthy diets and minimal alcohol abuse has also helped the nation a great deal in improving health.
A fitness specialist and former assistant physiotherapist to Fulham Football Club in England, Tapiwa Chakare said people have become more conscious about their health, exercising at home and joining gyms, which is positively impacting on life expectancy. “I can compare the body’s life expectancy to that of a motor car.
If you service your motor car on the outside only without opening up the bonnet to change the oil, plugs and so forth; then you will not know the car’s problems until it knocks out. This is the same with humans whom I would say worry more about the physical experience,” Chakare said.
Zimbabwe has made huge strides in human development as shown by the Human Development Index report.
While Zimbabwe has for the past few years been ranked amongst the countries with the lowest human development in the world, at the launch of the report early this year, United Nations Resident Co-odinator Mr Bishow Parajuli said Zimbabwe gained the most in sub-Saharan Africa since 2009.
He attributed the improvements to several factors that include reduction in maternal mortality by one-third from 960 per 100 000 live births in 2009 to 614 in 2014.
Mr Parajuli said an there has been increase in child immunisation to 69 percent and a reduction in child mortality rate from 94 deaths per 1 000 live births in 2009 to 75 deaths per 1 000 live births in 2014.
On the education sector, he said the expected years of schooling increased from 10,5 to 10,9 while mean years of schooling remained at 7,3. High literacy rate and improvements in gross national income from $1 442 to $1 615 during the same period also contributed to the gains.
