Andrew McKenzie - Health systems

Overview

Dr Andrew McKenzie is a health manager with over 20 years of experience gained in South Africa, Nigeria and Botswana. He has extensive experience in capacity building and facilitation and an excellent understanding of managing health systems and services, health sector reform and district development in sub-Saharan Africa.


Background and relevant experience

Between 2002 and 2004 Andrew served as State Team Leader for Enugu State in the Partnership for Transforming Health Systems (PATHS) programme in Nigeria, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). He played a key role in assisting the Enugu Steering Committee to develop a range of activities to strengthen health services and capacity in the state, and established a new district health system, which was strongly supported by the state’s governor. This work addressed such areas as:

  • quality of care in the private sector
  • strengthening of secondary-level care in the public sector
  • media and communications, including contribution to a television documentary series focusing on human rights issues and an HIV/AIDS radio diary
  • health management information systems (HMIS)
  • strategic planning for the public sector.


Since 2004, Andrew has been working part-time as a PATHS programme technical adviser for management systems. In this position he has played a key role in planning and developing the IMPACT initiative. This has included work on:

He is also a member of the Technical Advisory Group Member on the DFID-funded Programme for Reviving Routine Immunization in Northern Nigeria (PPRINN).

Previously, Andrew worked as a regional director of health in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. There he was responsible for developing and implementing a major management capacity-building programme for four years for all of the province’s 21 districts, which began operation in June 1998. Prior to this, he was Director of Health and Welfare for the Central Region, serving nearly two million people with 21 hospitals, 200 clinics, several welfare institutions and offices with 13,000 employees.

Between 1991 and 1995, Andrew worked as Project Director of NETHWORC, a Community Partnerships in Health Personnel Education Project, which linked together hospitals, other health services, the community and the health personnel training institutions. Between 1988 and 1995 he was the Education Coordinator for the Health Services Development Unit, a rural unit linked to the University of the Witwatersrand, South AfricA. This involved training nurse clinicians, nurse managers, organising a post-graduate education diploma programme and developing health management systems for the post-apartheid period in South Africa.

Andrew’s other work has included:

  • a Review of the South African health sector
  • coordinating the development of a peer education and counselling programme under the Management of HIV/AIDS Workplace Programmesfor the Eastern Cape Government in South Africa
  • working with the Health Information Systems Programme (HISP) on introducing HMIS into hospitals in the Eastern Cape Province
  • serving as a member of the Technical Review Panel for the Global Fund in Geneva.