Ministry should amplify voice on postmortem fees
What you need to know:
The issue:
Post-mortem fees
Our view:
Government facilities are said to charge Shs100,000 and upwards for the exercise. And considering that some people die after a lot of resources have been spent on treatment and associated costs, many families just want to bury the deceased because they can’t afford another day in hospital.
The revelation by Dr Kabanda, is thus, very welcome.
The revelation by a Ministry Health official that it is illegal for government hospitals to charge for post-mortem services is welcome news which ought to be spread to the last man.
According to Dr Richard Kabanda, the Commissioner Health Promotion, Education and Communication at the Ministry of Health, no one should charge post-mortem fees because the government already foots the bill.
Available literature indicates that the primary purpose of a postmortem examination is to confirm a known or suspected diagnosis of the cause of death of a given person. Like Dr Kabanda said, the essence of notifying the authorities is that in the event that a person has died of an infectious disease, the government can respond quickly and avoid further spread of that disease.
The examples of such diseases are many, including Ebola, Covid-19, cholera, etc. Post-mortems also help in processing of death certificates, which in the long run may help next of kin to claim benefits, among others.
However, the impact of these costs to communities across the country is dire and some people do not see the need to conduct them anymore.
For instance, many people across the country have developed cold feet after losing their loved ones and end up burying them in silence without autopsy reports because of the associated costs. This is partly the reason Ebola infected and killed many in Mubende District and neighbouring areas last year because no one could certainly tell what the problem was without diagnosis.
In the event that people die in hospitals, there have been several examples of relatives abandoning the bodies at morgues or selling property to raise money required for post-mortem services after health facilities detain bodies of their loved ones.
The pain peaked during the lockdown occasioned by the ravaging Covid-19, which forced the parliamentary taskforce on Covid-19 to read the riot act to health facilities for detaining bodies after relatives had failed to raise the fee.
Government facilities are said to charge Shs100,000 and upwards for the exercise. And considering that some people die after a lot of resources have been spent on treatment and associated costs, many families just want to bury the deceased because they can’t afford another day in hospital.
The revelation by Dr Kabanda, is thus, very welcome. And if he means his word, we implore the ministry to sensitise the public on this important matter.
