News / Health
Parirenyatwa calls for joint partnerships to improve health services
07 Sep 2016 at 10:32hrs | Views
Overcoming the country's economic challenges requires the support and contribution of all sectors of the economy, Health and Child Care Minister David Parirenyatwa told the Association of Health Funders of Zimbabwe (AHFoZ) All Stakeholders Conference in Victoria Falls on Wednesday.
In a speech read on his behalf by Deputy Health and Child Care Minister Aldrin Musiiwa, he said the challenges facing healthcare funders and service providers were chiefly related to the country's economic situation.
Service providers wanted adequate remuneration. Medical aid societies believed that their members would be unable to afford the increased subscription rates that increased payouts to service providers would require.
He said his ministry too was struggling with inadequate resources, which inevitably impacted on the quality of service its health institutions were able to provide.
"The government is doing what it can to address the economic challenges the country faces. However, we all know that overcoming them takes time.
"It also requires the full support and contribution of all sectors of the economy and society. Rather than waiting for things to get better, we need, all of us, to find ways of tackling the economic challenges we face," he said.
He gave Chitungwiza Central Hospital's success in overcoming a lack of resources from government through partnerships with private sector companies and institutions as an example of what can be achieved through public and private sector partnerships.
"It is through such partnerships and jointly tackling and overcoming the challenges affecting us that we will be able to improve the country's health services and further develop the country," he said.
The Minister expressed the hope that the conference would result in greater understanding of the concerns of different stakeholders and above all advance the interest of those for whom both health service providers and funders provided a service, the patients.
He said the healthcare services some medical aid societies were now providing complemented those provided by the public sector and other health service providers.
"This relieves pressure on often overstretched public facilities and offers the public a wider choice of healthcare facilities. It is a welcome development so long as medical aid societies allow their members freedom to choose which facilities to use and do not restrict them to their own facilities," he said.
He said that while medical aid societies and insurers play an important role in helping a substantial number of people pay for healthcare services, they only covered about 10 percent of the population.
"We need to find a way of establishing a National Health Service that will benefit not only those in formal employment but those in informal employment and those who are unemployed," he said.
"Welcoming delegates to the conference, AHFoZ chairman Macdonald Chaora said AHFoZ would like to see a common tariff for health services calculated scientifically based on research by and recommendations from actuaries and economists that both service providers and healthcare funders could agree on.
"We believe this would be the fairest means of establishing a common tariff. However, this would require the agreement of both funders and service providers and joint funding of the research," he said.
Another alternative worth considering, he said, would be for healthcare funders and providers to collectively lobby for a review of regulations to allow them to negotiate between themselves an agreed tariff, preferably based on competitiveness and value, as was the practice elsewhere.
In a brief review of the medical aid industry, AHFoZ chief executive Shylet Sanyanga said health funders had continued to be constrained in their activities by the operational environment, which had been characterized by slow economic growth, worsened by severe liquidity challenges.
She said AHFoZ and the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZiMa) had agreed in principle that a scientific tariff would provide a solution to perennial fights over fees. A technical team comprised of ZiMA and AHFoZ representatives had been appointed but had not yet met, despite repeated efforts by AHFoZ to arrange a meeting date, she said.
"Both AHFoZ and ZiMa have a moral obligation to ensure that this long outstanding issue is resolved without further delay. The lack of progress on this issue has perpetuated the suffering of patients, as they continue to face shortfalls and demands for cash from some service providers," she said.
"As a result, patients continue to look for cheaper options by going outside the country for treatment in countries such as India, Malawi, Zambia and South Africa. This is despite the inconveniences involved in being hospitalised in a foreign land, which for the average person is not ideal," she said.
She said that with the bulk of economic activity now taking place in the informal sector, medical aid societies would like to be able to offer cover to those working in that sector.
They hoped, she said, that the formalisation of the informal sector, as proposed by the Finance Ministry, would create opportunities for them to offer medical cover to those in that sector.
In a speech read on his behalf by Deputy Health and Child Care Minister Aldrin Musiiwa, he said the challenges facing healthcare funders and service providers were chiefly related to the country's economic situation.
Service providers wanted adequate remuneration. Medical aid societies believed that their members would be unable to afford the increased subscription rates that increased payouts to service providers would require.
He said his ministry too was struggling with inadequate resources, which inevitably impacted on the quality of service its health institutions were able to provide.
"The government is doing what it can to address the economic challenges the country faces. However, we all know that overcoming them takes time.
"It also requires the full support and contribution of all sectors of the economy and society. Rather than waiting for things to get better, we need, all of us, to find ways of tackling the economic challenges we face," he said.
He gave Chitungwiza Central Hospital's success in overcoming a lack of resources from government through partnerships with private sector companies and institutions as an example of what can be achieved through public and private sector partnerships.
"It is through such partnerships and jointly tackling and overcoming the challenges affecting us that we will be able to improve the country's health services and further develop the country," he said.
The Minister expressed the hope that the conference would result in greater understanding of the concerns of different stakeholders and above all advance the interest of those for whom both health service providers and funders provided a service, the patients.
He said the healthcare services some medical aid societies were now providing complemented those provided by the public sector and other health service providers.
"This relieves pressure on often overstretched public facilities and offers the public a wider choice of healthcare facilities. It is a welcome development so long as medical aid societies allow their members freedom to choose which facilities to use and do not restrict them to their own facilities," he said.
He said that while medical aid societies and insurers play an important role in helping a substantial number of people pay for healthcare services, they only covered about 10 percent of the population.
"We need to find a way of establishing a National Health Service that will benefit not only those in formal employment but those in informal employment and those who are unemployed," he said.
"Welcoming delegates to the conference, AHFoZ chairman Macdonald Chaora said AHFoZ would like to see a common tariff for health services calculated scientifically based on research by and recommendations from actuaries and economists that both service providers and healthcare funders could agree on.
"We believe this would be the fairest means of establishing a common tariff. However, this would require the agreement of both funders and service providers and joint funding of the research," he said.
Another alternative worth considering, he said, would be for healthcare funders and providers to collectively lobby for a review of regulations to allow them to negotiate between themselves an agreed tariff, preferably based on competitiveness and value, as was the practice elsewhere.
In a brief review of the medical aid industry, AHFoZ chief executive Shylet Sanyanga said health funders had continued to be constrained in their activities by the operational environment, which had been characterized by slow economic growth, worsened by severe liquidity challenges.
She said AHFoZ and the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZiMa) had agreed in principle that a scientific tariff would provide a solution to perennial fights over fees. A technical team comprised of ZiMA and AHFoZ representatives had been appointed but had not yet met, despite repeated efforts by AHFoZ to arrange a meeting date, she said.
"Both AHFoZ and ZiMa have a moral obligation to ensure that this long outstanding issue is resolved without further delay. The lack of progress on this issue has perpetuated the suffering of patients, as they continue to face shortfalls and demands for cash from some service providers," she said.
"As a result, patients continue to look for cheaper options by going outside the country for treatment in countries such as India, Malawi, Zambia and South Africa. This is despite the inconveniences involved in being hospitalised in a foreign land, which for the average person is not ideal," she said.
She said that with the bulk of economic activity now taking place in the informal sector, medical aid societies would like to be able to offer cover to those working in that sector.
They hoped, she said, that the formalisation of the informal sector, as proposed by the Finance Ministry, would create opportunities for them to offer medical cover to those in that sector.
Source - Mike Hamilton
