Expectant mothers fume over maternity fees

JOSH PETERS
Correspondent | Thursday May 16, 2013 00:00

BULAWAYO: In a development that could cost President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF many protest votes in the forthcoming elections, expectant mothers here are up in arms over payment of maternity fees at government hospitals.Government announced early in 2011 that all expectant women would receive free maternity services at all state-run health facilities. The announcement came following an agreement between government and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

According to the agreement then, the WHO was to provide funds for a free health care scheme under which expectant mothers, who could not afford to pay high fees charged in council clinics and private health care facilities, would be cushioned. On March 1 this year, government announced further that the scheme would be extended to rural health institutions. The gesture came after the European Commission (EC) promised to release US$17.1 million towards the revitalisation of Zimbabwe's ailing health sector. However, barely two weeks after the announcement, it emerged that pregnant women who had booked to deliver their babies at Chitungwiza Hospital since last year, were being made to pay.

Speaking in an interview from her home after delivering her baby at Chitungwiza Hospital recently, a distraught Tatenda Gora expressed her shock at what she described as the 'deceitful way' pregnant women were being treated. 'Many women are very disappointed because we all rushed to the hospital where we were all booked for free. But when I went to deliver three days later I was shocked to be told that I had to pay US$200  (P 1,400). 'I had a normal delivery, but those who delivered by Caesarian section were ordered to pay twice as much for a service that is supposed to be freeâ' she claimed.

Gora added that those who fail to pay delivery fees are detained in the maternity ward and made to sleep on the floor until their spouses or relatives settle the bill.  'Imagine, one moment you are celebrating the birth of an innocent baby and the next you are told to vacate your bed, detained and asked to sleep on the cold cement floors until you raise the amount required because the nurses will not let you leave the ward. Surely this is abusing women and their babies,' she said.Gora was one of the scores of pregnant women who stopped going to council clinics for 'free' maternity care at the Chitungwiza Provincial hospital where services are thought to be superior.

'They just wanted to make money through us. I should have gone to the local clinic where they charge only $30 (P210), but the problem is once you book at one health  care centre, it is wise not to change to another one,' Gora said.Sometimes the accounts department asks the mothers to pay a deposit before referring them to the debtors' section to arrange a payment plan for the balance before releasing them from hospital. 

Asked for comment, the hospital's public relations officer (PRO) confirmed that maternity care used to be free, but due to financial constraints, the hospital was now booking expectant mothers free but making them pay in the wards after delivery.Zimbabwe is expected to hold presidential and parliamentary elections most likely in July after parliament last week approved the country's new constitution that will mark the end of the government of national unity formed with South African mediation between ZANU-PF and MDC of prime minister Morgan Tsavingirai. (SPA)