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Thandeka Moyo, Health Reporter
THE Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa, is set to meet the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Cde July Moyo, to discuss the scrapping of user fees by council-run clinics in a bid to ease pressure on central hospitals.
Government scrapped user fees for infants, senior citizens and pregnant women and nursing mothers at state-run hospitals as part of measures to increase access to healthcare in January this year.
The measure has seen an increase in the number of pregnant women flocking to public hospitals for services, putting pressure on the health institutions.
“I have to meet with the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing because when we issued this directive that children under five, pregnant women and people aged over 65 should not pay, their clinics continued to charge,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
“What happened is that while the services are free in our institutions, the local authority run clinics and institutions continue to charge. People are now saying why should we pay when the public institutions are offering the services for free.”
He said there was a need to harmonise the policy with Minister Moyo so that services are free at all institutions.
“When the Ministry implements that, it will cut overflow of patients in central hospitals as clinics will be able to manage such conditions for free,” said the Minister.
Dr Parirenyatwa said strengthening primary healthcare at clinics would ease the pressure on central hospitals.
Mpilo Central Hospital chief executive officer Mr Leonard Mabandi recently said the scrapping of the fees had seen an influx of women seeking maternal services.
“I may not know the numbers off hand, but we have seen a lot of women coming to get maternal services from our maternity ward since the scrapping of user fees. The situation has, however, forced us to use floor beds because we are overwhelmed by the number of pregnant women that we have to admit at a given time,” said Mr Mabandi.
He said hospital staff was being overwhelmed to accommodate all women and at the same time deliver quality services with limited resources.
Community Working Group on Health director Mr Itai Rusike said the scrapping of fees was a great step towards taking healthcare to ordinary Zimbabweans.
“Equity gains would be possible if Government were able to enforce the user fee abolition policy at primary care level and fee abolition for specified people at district level, including in urban areas. However, this needs to be accompanied by increased funding to services and investment into the health sector,” said Mr Rusike. — @thamamoe
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter