When doctors threatened to charge patients on medical aid cash from 1 July, Zimbabwe’s legislators were quick to act.
A motion to debate the issue was introduced barely a day after the doctors’ threat as a “definite matter of urgent public importance”.
Though it was called for by Movement for Democratic Change legislator James Maridadi, all Members of Parliament in the House stood up to support the motion.
Though there are more than 30 medical aid societies in the country, there are only 1.2 million people on medical aid out of an estimated population of 15.8 million.
The people worst affected were, of course, the legislators themselves and other members of the Premier Service Medical Aid Society, the country’s largest medical aid society which caters for 874 000 of the 1.2 million people.
The debate in which 11 legislators contributed before it was cut off when opposition Members of Parliament started demanding that President Robert Mugabe should come to address the issue because he was responsible for the economic decay in the country, was centred on doctors accepting medical aid cards rather than on the simple fact that some 14.6 million people have to pay cash for medical treatment which most cannot afford.
The fact that Zimbabwe has the most expensive health care in the region was just mentioned in passing.
But perhaps, the legislators were just echoing what the people also believe.
Last year when I wrote that I had gone to see a doctor in Zanzibar and paid only Ts1 000, which was equivalent to 56 US cents then, readers of The Insider were very skeptical with some saying I had gone to see a fake doctor. But that was what the people paid, the same amount that they paid for a packet of fresh chips.
In Dar-es-Salaam, I paid Ts12 000 to see a private doctor at one of the exclusive surgeries that also accepted medical aid patients. I was told medical aid patients were charged more.
With doctors and medical aid societies expected to meet tomorrow to reach a settlement, the issue of cost may be quietly buried away while doctors negotiate an increase in fees.
Health Minister David Parirenyatwa said before the current impasse doctors wanted a fee of $60 while medical aid societies said they were only prepared to pay $21. The government then set a fee of $35. What can the nation expect next?
Below is the full debate on the doctors- medical aid crisis and Parirenyatwa’s response.
Legislators unite to condemn doctors’ demand for cash from medical aid patients
MP says medical aid societies that cannot pay doctors should ship out
MPs says doctors must be humane
MP says it is very dangerous for doctors to experiment with human beings
Mugabe should issue a statement on doctors-MP says
MP asks why is Cuthbert Dube walking scot-free when people are denied medical care?
MP says Health Minister Parirenyatwa cannot intervene in doctors’ case
Another MP asks why Cuthbert Dube has not been arrested
MP says let’s not drag Mugabe into the doctors mess
MP says Chinamasa should explain where money deducted for medical aid is going
Mugabe to blame for the doctors-medical aid societies’ crisis- MP
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