Let’s not tolerate greed, unilateralism in health sector

decade and at a time when some light was beginning to flicker at the end of the tunnel private hospitals have decided to increase their consultation fees outside normal channels to US$50.
Private doctors charge a minimum of US$20 in consultation fees with public health institutions charging US$10. We believe the stance taken by the private hospitals is thoroughly reprehensible and beyond condonation coming against an earlier agreed position that the fees would not be increased until a consensus was reached possibly at a meeting scheduled for next month.
It is against this background that we welcome the move by the Government to reverse the 20 percent increase that the hospitals effected on their consultation fees at the start of this month.
Health and Child Welfare Deputy Minister Dr Douglas Mombeshora directed the Private Hospitals Association of Zimbabwe on Tuesday this week to reverse the increase pending the meeting on November 14 with other stakeholders where the tariffs would be discussed.
“We had a meeting on September 26 where we agreed that no one should increase tariffs until the Joint Advisory Council meets on November 14,” said Dr Mombeshora.  
We understand the advisory council consists of hospitals, doctors and medical aid societies and wonder how hospitals decided to disregard this tripartite arrangement. When regulatory systems are in place, it is usually not necessary for Government to intervene on issues to do with tariffs, but we believe also that where flagrant disregard of such laid down procedures is exhibited, whether motivated by greed or some other unexplained factors, the Government is justified in stepping in to restore order.
This is because the same Government will take the flak when the people start suffering due to unaffordable health services. Also, where one party makes decisions outside the tripartite framework, the other parties would not be bound by such a decision hence setting the stage for a bruising battle between hospitals and medical aid societies. 
What is disconcerting, however, is that it is the patients that will be at the receiving end of such a dispute, leading to situations where patients would be burdened with shortfalls when they would have been contributing faithfully to their medical aid societies.
In fact, the Government should also interrogate the pricing models and compare them with tariffs of health services in other countries so that we do not end up exporting jobs in the sector. 
There are cases where some patients have opted to be attended to in other countries for a procedure that could easily be done in this country due to the terribly steep tariffs locally.
We can never hope to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health and combat HIV and Aids, Malaria and other diseases-three of the eight MDGS with specific emphasis on health — if hospitals price themselves out of the reach of the patients.
In the absence of close monitoring to ensure tariffs are justified we risk having a situation whereby greed could weigh down much more heavily on the health sector than the European Union and US sanctions combined.
This could then undo progress made to date in improving our health sector and restoring the dignity of the Zimbabwean patient and push us further away from our MDGs that should be met three years from now. 
We are not advocating a freeze on tariffs — far from it — but reasonable adjustments through consensus within the agreed legal frameworks instead of the unilateral setting of tariffs that seems to regard patients as mere statistics rather than human with needs that should be considered and respected.