The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu Senior Reporter
MPILO Central Hospital in Bulawayo is still demanding that pregnant mothers pay $50 maternity fees despite a Government directive which scrapped the charges to allow more women to access health institutions and reduce maternity deaths.
While touring the health institution last week, Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa was told that expecting mothers at the hospital were required to pay to access medical care.
“I disagree completely (that women must pay maternity fees) because we said it that pregnant mothers should not be paying anything and it is policy. This also applies to people over 65 years and under five years, they should not pay. You are actually defying our policy as a ministry,” he said.
Dr Parirenyatwa said the process was not as smooth at Mpilo and they need to rectify it. He, however, said institutions were facing financing challenges.
“What is happening in some of these institutions is that because of the shortage of money they are scrounging around and that is a challenge. This is why we are asking that treasury of all the important things in the country should give money to the health systems,” he said.
Acting chief executive officer of the hospital Mr Leonard Mabhandi said the anomaly was going to be rectified. The Government scrapped maternity user fees as many women were dying due to maternity related complications with many falling to raise the fees and subsequently dying at home.
Many maternal deaths have been very common in rural set ups where money is scarce and health institutions are far from the people. Women were resorting to giving birth at home, exposing their lives to danger. The urban poor also faced a similar situation as they too could not afford the required user fees and that resulted in many home deliveries by untrained health care providers.
Last week the International Day of the Midwife was celebrated at Mpilo Hospital with calls to have a separate establishment of midwives in the county’s hospitals in order to have specialised care. Dr Lilian Dodzo the president of the Zimbabwe Confederation of Midwives stressed the need for a separate establishment.
“This is long overdue, we cannot have midwives changing from the maternity ward to the general ward as and when there was a need, they need to stand alone so that they gain adequate experience in their work,” she said.
They also called for the increase in training of midwives from 12 months to 18 months. Dr Dodzo said the curriculum for midwives now includes a vast spectrum of areas of study which means the training period is also to increase so that the country does not produce half baked personnel. The National Health Strategy notes that Zimbabwe has 80 percent vacancy for midwives.
