The President of the Order of Doctors of Mozambique, Gilberto Manhiça, is concerned with the massification of health units through the government initiative "One District, One Neighborhood", while the effort to improve the quality of health services is relatively inferior.

Asked if the initiative is a positive answer to the country's health problems, Gilberto Manhiça said that it still has theoretical viability.

"In theoretical terms it seems so," he said, questioning the feasibility of increasing health care facilities while those that already exist need more investment to qualify their services.

"What we have as health units have been operating far below their needs. Is increasing the volume of health units throughout the country going to answer that need while we don't optimize the ones we already have?", he questioned, stressing that the approach to solve the problems must be different.

The official explained that when moving from a health center to a rural hospital the cost requirements increase.

"You don't take a nurse there anymore. The costs that all this entails are far higher than what we have seen," in ways that the "One District, One Hospital" initiative will be an asset "if the state is in a position to accommodate these needs."

Manhiça also criticized, in the same vein, the under-utilization of the investment made by families and the State for the training of personnel who then remain without jobs due to lack of improvement of services in the existing health units.

"Now, if we leave this general practitioner without practicing for about a year, he resumes activities already with some deficit of quality and, therefore, must go through a process of reaccommodation, when, in terms of ratio, we have room for him to be properly accommodated," he said.