Offer every Ugandan family access to women’s hospital
Mid this week, Mulago Specialised Women and Neonatal Hospital will open its doors to provide specialised services for women in our country. However, even before the doors open, there is increasing outcry and concern about the proposed cost of services.
As a policy, healthcare in the public health units of Uganda is free. This perception is, however, only an illusion. The reality is that health services and more so, specialist healthcare, is not cheap.
Even the most basic of medicines and supplies is almost always lacking all over the country. The budgetary allocations to the Ministry of Health cannot support quality free healthcare and the meagre government funding can only go as far.
With a huge gap in health financing, the Ministry of Health has proposed some very unsavory costs to be paid by those planning to access services in the brand new women’s hospital. The costs are so high for the average Ugandan women that without any mitigation measures, most will be locked out of the hospital.
The justification is that without these costs being paid, the facility will quickly degenerate to levels of the other hospitals and the so-called specialist hospital will be no more.
To mitigate the costs, the administration of the new hospital is planning a waiver system for deserving patients so that those requiring services, but unable to afford, will undergo an assessment and the costs waived on fulfilling a set criteria.
The problem, however, is that those able to afford these costs are so few that the fees may have to be waived in almost all cases.
In the recent week-long specialist health camp that Uganda Medical Association conducted in the West Nile districts of Arua, Maracha, Yumbe, Moyo and Adjumani in the month of June, infertility was the leading reason families attending gynaecological clinics. For example, in Adjumani District, over 80 per cent of women came because of challenges in conceiving.
The question is, what proportion of these families can afford to pay the more than Shs14 million needed to access assisted reproduction in the new hospital?
The time to introduce the National Health Insurance, that would have financed such services, was yesterday. Yet despite years of talking about this funding mechanism, to date, the Bill has not seen the inside of Parliament.
Instead, this Bill is still sitting on someone’s desk. Can we do the right thing and get this Bill through Parliament so that as a nation, we can support and provide affordable quality health services to this nation?
In the meantime, we need a system to provide every deserving Ugandan family access services at this hospital.
Can I suggest the administration of the new hospital to publish the annual cost of a hospital bed offering specialist services just like International Hospital used to have in Hope Ward for a specific specialist service?
And can I then challenge individuals, businesses and corporate bodies to each pick out a bed or two or three or more as philanthropy and corporate social responsibility, and fund the services this bed provides?
There are so many possibilities. The board of the hospital can come up with many more possibilities.
Dr Idro is senior lecturer at
Makerere University.
[email protected]
