Tanzania, India set to put up modern heart hospital in Dar
President Jakaya Kikwete and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with their spouses, Salma Kikwete (L) and Gursharan Kaur, at State House in Dar es Salaam yesterday. (Photo: Khalfan Said)
The hospital will be constructed at the University of Dar es Salaam near Mlimani City, according to an agreement signed in Dar es Salaam yesterday by President Kikwete and visiting Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.
Addressing journalists and delegates at State House after signing the agreement, President Kikwete said the construction would be undertaken jointly by Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Limited of India on the Indian side and the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare on the Tanzanian side.
Kikwete said the hospital will help Tanzania to save almost 11bn/- which was spent in treating patients abroad last year.
He said apart from heart related diseases, the hospital will be curing patients with neurosurgical, kidney and cancer diseases.
He said that India has so far trained 29 medical practitioners from Tanzania who are now able to perform open heart surgeries, and that they had so far succeeded in 155 cases.
“We thank India for their support in helping us build our own hospital to treat complicated diseases”, he said.
He said Tanzania wanted to deal with health care internally and had asked experts from Apollo hospital to come and examine the patients here every few months.
The president said in future, they planned to build similar hospitals in Mbeya, Mwanza, Arusha and Zanzibar.
Under the agreement signed yesterday, India also pledged to provide USD 190 million for water and capacity building projects.
President Kikwete hailed the bilateral cooperation between Tanzania and India which, he said, had resulted in increased trade volume which currently stood at 1.1bn/- while the Indian investment in Tanzania was 1.3bn/-.
He asked India to provide support in the education, agriculture, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and manufacturing sectors.
The president said his government was committed to improving agriculture because 80 per cent of the country’s population resided in rural areas and depended on farming.
He said agriculture was growing at a slow pace compared to other sectors such as tourism which was growing by 40 per cent and communication by 20 per cent while agriculture growth remained at only 4.3 percent.
“Our main focus is to increase productivity through the use of fertilizers and modern agricultural equipments. We also want to improve our rural roads”, he said.
Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said the USD 190 million credit will be used in improving water supply projects in Dar es Salaam (USD 180 million) and the USD 10 million for capacity building projects in the social and education sectors.
He said the Indian government was committed to support the President’s national agriculture first initiative as Tanzania is India’s important trading partner.
Dr Singh said they would also focus on small and medium industries, healthcare and human resource development. “Looked at from any point of view, whether geographical proximity, cultural influences or the stages of our development, it is essential for the two countries to have close relations. We will accelerate our efforts to this end”, Dr Singh said.
THE Director of Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO), Michael Laizer said the agreement signed yesterday would help boost small scale entrepreneurs.
He said the Indian government was likely to support them in building processing industries since the country was facing a shortage of industries for its agricultural produce.
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