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Council vows to continue charging maternity fees
Tatenda
Chitagu, The Standard (Zimbabwe)
August 18, 2013
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/2013/08/18/council-vows-to-continue-charging-maternity-fees/
Harare City
Council (HCC) has vowed to continue charging maternity user fees
despite a government directive that the service should be free.
City council
director of health services, Charles Mungofa said the local authority
could not scrap the user fees because it would seriously compromise
service delivery.
“Someone
has to pay for that service, there is nothing for free and as long
as there is no one who is willing to pay on behalf of those women,
we will charge them,” said Mungofa.
Mungofa said
it was an unfortunate situation but unavoidable.
He said currently
the clinics were charging US$25 for maternity which he said was
way cheaper than the US$250 that other health institutions charged.
“We are
very mindful of the people that we serve and that is why we charge
such low fees,” he said.
Mungofa said
the local authority was not getting any assistance from the Health
Transition Fund (HTF) because it was not entitled to it. “We
are not beneficiaries of that fund so it is pointless discussing
it,” he said.
Efforts to get
a comment from outgoing Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Henry
Madzorera were fruitless last week.
The United Nations
(UN) said Zimbabwe is ranked among the 40 countries in the world
with high maternal mortality rate of over 960 maternal deaths per
100 000 live births.
It says the
country made remarkable progress during the first decade of independence
in improving access to health services through the primary health
care approach, which enabled access to basic health care services
for about 85% of the population, resulting in a 20% decline in mortality
rate.
“Unfortunately
the country then failed to sustain this progress. As a result, the
country has not made any progress from the 1990 MDGs base year maternal
mortality levels,” said the UN in its latest issue paper series.
“This
is partly due to the prolonged political and economic crisis in
the country and has been exacerbated by the HIV and Aids epidemic
for the last two decades”.
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