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Senior officials at Bulawayo hospitals yesterday said they have received a circular advising them that they should stop charging maternity fees with effect from 1 July.
“We received a circular advising us that maternity fees have been done away with as from 1 July,” said an official at Mpilo Central Hospital, who asked not to be named.
The move has been commended by women’s organisations who say it will reduce the burden of giving birth, especially for underprivileged women.
The Bulawayo provincial development officer in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Mrs Vaidah Mashangwa, said the scrapping of maternity fees would help the nation become healthier.
“The move will obviously reduce maternal deaths in the country because every pregnant woman will be able to go through the correct and safe process before delivery. This means that we will have healthy mothers, healthy children and a healthy nation,” said Mrs Mashangwa.
“Most women were failing to access antenatal care at the public health facilities because they could not afford the maternity fees, forcing them to give birth at home or visit the clinic just before delivery.”
The programmes co-ordinator for Msasa Project, a women’s pressure group, Mrs Senelisiwe Kupeta, said the Government had shown its commitment in reducing maternal deaths in the country.
“The scraping of maternity user fees is a good move, which indicates that the Government respects maternal health and values children’s lives. It will also help women to claim their rights and reduce the burden of giving birth,” said Mrs Kupeta.
“The move also indicates an achievement for us as a country to accomplish the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which emphasises on the reduction of maternal and child deaths in the country.”
Mrs Kupeta said paying maternity user fees was one of the biggest challenges faced by many women, especially those in rural areas, who resort to giving birth at home.
“The maternity user fees were robbing pregnant women of an opportunity to attend the important and life-saving antenatal care services.
“Now we have a chance to know whether some women were giving birth at home because of financial challenges or culture,” said Mrs Kupeta.
In an interview yesterday, Health and Child Welfare Minister Dr Henry Madzorera said the ministry was in the process of procuring drugs and other equipment required in the maternity health services. He could not be drawn to revealing when exactly the hospitals would start attending to pregnant women free of charge.
Dr Madzorera said his ministry had a budget of more than $430 million for the next five years and had collected $45 million through the Health Transition Fund (HTF).
“We have a steering committee which is working on the matter and it has assured us that very soon the ministry would be able to scrap maternity user fees. We are in the process of procuring drugs and we have started buying other equipment that is required in the health services. We have a lot of things to be put in place before we stop the hospitals and clinics from charging maternity fees,” said Minister Madzorera.
“The ministry has to raise more than $430 million for the next five years and we have already collected over $45 million through the HTF to beef up the Health Services Fund (HSF).”
He said the removing of the maternity fees was a process and the ministry had to make sure there were adequate funds to offer the services for free.
“It is a process that needs careful planning as there are a lot of things to put in place. We had to put everything in place first before we could stop the hospitals and clinics from charging the fees, otherwise the health system would collapse.
“We have to avoid cases of mothers giving birth at home because of failure to pay maternal user fees,” said Dr Madzorera.
Expecting mothers paid $50 at council clinics and $65 at public hospitals for babies delivered by operation. The bulk of the women who ended up at Government hospitals were those who would have paid $25 to register at their respective council clinics, but experience complications which required them to go to the referral hospitals like United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH).
Worst hit by the exorbitant fees were women in the rural areas, who struggled to access life-saving maternal and child health care.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, a woman’s lifetime risk of dying of pregnancy compli-cations stands at one in 42 and of every 1 000 live births, while 80 children die before reaching the age of five.
Online Reporter