Zim health services too expensive- MP

MDC-T Tafara Mabvuku MP James Maridadi has said revelations are that health services in Zimbabwe are too high compared to other countries in the region.

Posing a question to Health and Child Care minister David Parirenyatwa in parliament, Maridadi said the minister must explain the cost structure of health delivery in Zimbabwe in relation to other countries.

"I say this because I have heard that the health delivery cost in Zimbabwe is very high as compared to other countries.  I would like the Hon Minister to address that," he said.

"Secondly, I also want to refer the Hon. Minister to issues of anti-trust laws and conflict of interest as well as competition because when the Minister gave his statement, he raised a number of contentious issues.  One of them is that there are preferred service providers by health insurers and those health providers are the people who own those health provision facilities."

Maridadi said that is a matter that was raised by the Minister and was also raised in my interview with the doctors.

"I would like the Minister to address that.  My solution however is that, because there is disagreement on the tariff to be paid by the insurers and tariff that doctors accept, can you not then find specialists like actuaries who can look at the tariff and come up with a win-win situation for both the doctors, medical insurers and the general public.  There are so many people that are keen to help the Ministry in this country," he said.

"Lastly, the people that I am talking about are players in a football match.  The most important person in a football match is the man in the middle, the referee who in this case is the Minister.  With all due respect, Minister, you must always be on the ball.  We do not want the situation to deteriorate."

Maridadi said the Minister is the most important person in this whole issue because he is the referee in terms of gazetting tariffs, adherence to the tariffs and calling to order those that disregard tariffs.

"The Hon Minister is the man in the middle and he must continue to play his role," he said.

In his response the minister said it is true that Zimbabwe's health services in the private sector are extremely high, even the drugs here are much more expensive than in other countries and this is reflective of our whole economy.

"So I think you are right.  It is very painful for us and particularly for some of us in the Ministry to send a patient to India to get a prostatectomy done when it can be done here. We can remove a prostate here but we are sending people to have a prostate removed in India, which is much more expensive," Parirenyatwa said.

"Therefore we are saying to ourselves let us just resource our health services a bit more, get personnel who can work in those institutions and are adequately remunerated.  We can then be able to say to ourselves we can do more services to our people.  You are right, the cost structure in the country is very high."

He said the anti-trust laws and the Competition Commission – this is all being looked at.

"I think you are right about actuarial assessment of tariffs.  This is what we have agreed on with doctors and the service providers that we cannot come up with a tariff from nowhere.  We have agreed that there should be an actuarial determination of tariffs.  However, that is long term, we wanted an immediate solution and the actuarial assessment of tariffs is coming in," he said.