What we are doing is clearly to say if medical insurers and providers can agree on a new tariff that is affordable to the medical aid societies and acceptable to the providers. If you can accept that and make sure that once you accept it you are then able to pay the providers regularly, timeously and you have agreed between the two of you, there is no need for us to Gazette, we will take the new tariff. We are trying therefore, through our negotiations, to make sure that there is some agreement, some rapprochement where the two can agree and come up with a reasonable tariff so that the patient does not have to suffer a co-payment. As it is now, when we say $35.00 the insurers are saying we will only give you $20.00 so the patient must pay $15.00 up front and those co-payments are unfair to the patient and this is what we are trying to sort out.
Hon. Ziyambi Ziyambi talked about ZIMRA. Yes, it is true, it has really compromised a lot doctors and I think it touches on what you said Hon. Chimanikire. What has happened is when a doctor sees a patient and fills-in the medical aid form, that form goes to the medical insurance. It is a claim that the doctor has made but he has not yet received payment and ZIMRA was garnishing the money at that point. They were now saying no, no, no because you made this claim, we are going to take tax from that.
On Monday, when we sat with Hon. Chinamasa, he clarified that it is supposed to be done annually and not per every claim. Then the doctor should be able to say what were their losses are, which claims were paid and which were not paid then you have a realistic sum which is then taxed there from. During the meeting Hon. Chinamasa actually allocated an officer to work with the doctors, so there is now already a liaison between the doctors and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. I think that the issue of ZIMRA, for that purpose, will be sorted out. I am not sure how the issue that you mentioned about the garnishing and selling of houses can be sorted out. Perhaps there are other people who are more qualified to define how that can be sorted out.
Hon. Sibanda you asked about the allocation of money to the Ministry of Health and Child Care. I must emphasize again that we are getting from the GDP, an average of 7.5%. The stipulation the world over and what was agreed by Africa at the African Union was that 15% of GDP should go to the health delivery system, then we prioritise. Our priority has always been prevention, prevention and prevention in all its forms and of course to look at the human resources for health, drugs and medicines, communication – including transport and ambulances, disease burden including HIV, Malaria, Tuberculosis (TB) and of course to look at the non-communicable diseases – those are our priorities and that is how our allocation should be.
We are saying to ourselves, this issue has been touched upon about how are you going to alleviate the congestion? Maybe I will come to that one later on.
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