Tanzania's hospitals have nearly doubled their beds since 2021

Dar es Salaam — When Tanzania became independent in 1961, Julius Nyerere named three enemies of development: poverty, ignorance and disease. On the 27th anniversary of his death, 14 October, Tanzania's Daily News looked at how far the fight against the third has come.

Then

At independence, access to health care was a major problem, especially in rural areas, where facilities were few and far away.

• The first five-year plan, 1964 to 1969, set out to build regional hospitals and expand specialist and surgical care.
• The second, 1969 to 1974, turned more towards prevention and controlling communicable diseases.
• Under the Ujamaa policy, the government built health centres, dispensaries and hospitals and trained more medical staff.

Those goals matched the principles of primary health care later set out in the Declaration of Alma-Ata in 1978.

Now

The Health Ministry's facility registry lists 14,398 facilities. According to the figures in the report:

• Beds in public facilities rose from 86,131 in 2021 to 156,932 by March 2026.
• Public intensive care beds rose from 258 to 1,647.
• Hospitals with emergency medicine departments rose from 7 in 2020 to 113 in 2024.
• Facilities offering comprehensive emergency care for mothers and newborns rose from 340 to 523.
• The availability of medicines and medical supplies reached 88.8% in February 2026, against 73% in 2021/22.

The government's chief spokesperson, Gerson Msigwa, said 1.73 trillion shillings had been invested through local government between 2021/22 and 2025/26, paying for 25 new council hospitals, the rehabilitation of 62 older ones, 564 new health centres, 1,586 dispensaries started by communities, 87 emergency departments, 30 intensive care units and 21 oxygen plants.

Mothers

In August the Health Ministry reported that maternal deaths had fallen from 556 to 104 per 100,000 live births over the period its figures cover. The report notes that more is still needed in skilled birth attendance, emergency obstetric care, referrals and services for women in remote areas.

Insurance and specialists

Tanzania's Universal Health Insurance Act was signed in December 2023. Its first phase began in January 2026, with the government paying the premiums of vulnerable households. By June, 997,015 of the 1,206,319 people targeted had been registered.

Specialised care has expanded so that fewer patients need to travel abroad. Muhimbili National Hospital now performs kidney, bone marrow and cochlear implant procedures, and the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute treats complex heart conditions for patients from Tanzania and neighbouring countries. The Health Ministry's budget for 2026/27 is 1.8 trillion shillings, up from about 1.618 trillion.

A name that travels

On 1 August, Angola opened the President Julius Nyerere National Referral Hospital for Burn Treatment in Luanda, in tribute to his part in African liberation. At the opening, President Samia Suluhu Hassan urged African countries to invest in specialist care so that patients can be treated at home.

Source: Daily News (Dar es Salaam) via AllAfrica, reporting by Esther Kasanga, 14 October 2026.