admin
Prosper Ndlovu recently Victoria Falls
HEALTH and Child Care Deputy Minister Dr Paul Chimedza says the country’s major hospitals are struggling to provide food for patients due to lack of sufficient funding from the government.He called for a new finance model for public health centres while contributing to debate during a 2015 pre-budget seminar for parliamentarians here on Saturday.
Dr Chimedza told the gathering that relying on fiscal funding for health care institutions was not sustainable hence the outcry over poor health care service rendered to Zimbabweans across the country.
“The system of getting money from the fiscus isn’t working. We need a new financing model for the health sector, a model that is sustainable. The ministry budget is on the decrease with services now dependent on donor funding and user fees,” he said. “Feeding patients is now difficult because the hospitals are struggling to collect revenue because of the difficult economy.”
Coming at a time when medical doctors had downed tools citing low remuneration and poor working conditions, Dr Chimedza said government hospitals were no longer able to provide free health services as expected because of budgetary constraints.
He called for increased budgetary allocation for the sector and reported that treasury only allocated eight percent of the 2014 budget to health, falling short of the Abuja declaration target of 15 percent. It also emerged that the country gave $25,92 per capita allocation for health compared to the World Health Organisation’s target of $34.
Dr Chimedza also reported that while budgetary allocations were made each year, the funds disbursed were insignificant and often sporadic, making it difficult for institutions to plan and provide the required services.
“We’re operating on a cash budget, from hand to mouth. Often the bulk of the money we get goes to salary expenditure, debts payment and utilities hence complaints over rotting bodies and lack of drugs.
“The ministry is in a tight space. However, we’ve taken a position not to turn people away but attend to them and then follow them for payment,” he said.
During the plenary session, parliamentarians called for increased budgetary allocation to the health sector and timely disbursement of the funds.
Others complained that government doctors were deliberately not giving the best service in hospitals choosing to refer patients to their private surgeries. There were calls to build more clinics and hospitals and mobilising more resources under the Health Transition Fund.
Earlier, Dr Chimedza said Zimbabwe was presently Ebola free following the outbreak of the deadly disease, which has claimed nearly 5,000 in West Africa, according to WHO statistics. “There’s no single case of Ebola in Zimbabwe but it has caused anxiety and fear. It seems people don’t trust government officials and think the reports we give them are a spin or something else,” said the Deputy Minister.
He said there was no way Zimbabwe could hide the Ebola outbreak as the country was working with the WHO and countries like South Africa for confirmation tests.
Dr Chimedza blamed the information gap over the disease for causing panic, which he said was prejudicing the country of millions of dollars through cancellation of investment visits and tourist arrivals. “Ebola isn’t a joking matter. We need to be responsible with the information we distribute. Some of the messages we send are damaging. We’ve had cancellation of investor visits and tourists’ arrivals and the country lost more than $6 million,” he said.
Dr Chimedza said they had taken the fight to the social media to ensure the public was given adequate information about Ebola and the proper government position on the outbreak in Zimbabwe.
Online Reporter