News / National
Harare Hospital situation horrible
14 Sep 2015 at 08:17hrs | Views
Harare Residents Trust has expressed concern that the Hospital in which expecting and delivered mothers are usually detained is a horrible place for one to be in.
"According to well informed officials at Harare Hospital, the situation at Kugomba is serious, requiring urgent Government intervention," said the trust. "We continue to do interviews, speaking to all concerned people, with no fear, and no favour! End the detentions of women at Harare Hospital! Close the Kugomba. In their own words, they say: It is a horrible place where mothers who have babies admitted in the nursery stay. Babies do not pay hospital bills."
The trust said others who fail to pay their maternal/delivery fees are kept at post natal wards...of course people might call it detained.
"The fact is a maternity unit is quite expensive to run and each maternal case differs. the fees range from as little as $15 to as much as $500," said the trust. "No external funding is available except in cases blood transfusion or blood products are required. However some women present with vouchers from well wishers. As a matter of fact no funding is available for every maternal case and mothers are well informed on the need to meet their own expenses for the sake of sustaining the unit."
The trust said it is unfortunate considering our current economic challenges. Its a difficult decision to make but without making it there will be no unit functioning.
"Almost over 75% of the mothers do not pay the full amount of hospital bills. Of course this is already compromising service delivery. If asked to give their physical addresses so that payment arrangements can be made most of them lie- a challenge on its own in terms of debt recovery," said the trust. "People from our accounts section are then forced to detain the mothers. On our part as the medical professionals its unethical to detain patients for non payment of medical bills and note none of us has advocated for that. It has been the sole responsibility of our accounts personnel to recover debts,unveil funds for equipment and to ensure the unit is adequately kept functioning in terms of availability of material."
"It is their responsibility to ensure that funding or funds are available to do so. This might encroach on medical ethics...its unfortunate though," the trust added.
"According to well informed officials at Harare Hospital, the situation at Kugomba is serious, requiring urgent Government intervention," said the trust. "We continue to do interviews, speaking to all concerned people, with no fear, and no favour! End the detentions of women at Harare Hospital! Close the Kugomba. In their own words, they say: It is a horrible place where mothers who have babies admitted in the nursery stay. Babies do not pay hospital bills."
The trust said others who fail to pay their maternal/delivery fees are kept at post natal wards...of course people might call it detained.
"The fact is a maternity unit is quite expensive to run and each maternal case differs. the fees range from as little as $15 to as much as $500," said the trust. "No external funding is available except in cases blood transfusion or blood products are required. However some women present with vouchers from well wishers. As a matter of fact no funding is available for every maternal case and mothers are well informed on the need to meet their own expenses for the sake of sustaining the unit."
The trust said it is unfortunate considering our current economic challenges. Its a difficult decision to make but without making it there will be no unit functioning.
"Almost over 75% of the mothers do not pay the full amount of hospital bills. Of course this is already compromising service delivery. If asked to give their physical addresses so that payment arrangements can be made most of them lie- a challenge on its own in terms of debt recovery," said the trust. "People from our accounts section are then forced to detain the mothers. On our part as the medical professionals its unethical to detain patients for non payment of medical bills and note none of us has advocated for that. It has been the sole responsibility of our accounts personnel to recover debts,unveil funds for equipment and to ensure the unit is adequately kept functioning in terms of availability of material."
"It is their responsibility to ensure that funding or funds are available to do so. This might encroach on medical ethics...its unfortunate though," the trust added.
Source - Byo24News
