GOVERNMENT has appealed to private doctors and hospitals to reduce their charges so as to discourage patients from seeking cheap treatment outside the country.
Feluna Nleya
Officially opening the Private Hospitals’ Association of Zimbabwe Conference and Annual General Meeting in Harare last Friday, Health and Child Care deputy minister Paul Chimedza said he had observed that Zimbabweans constituted the highest number of foreign patients seeking treatment in India.
“We must sit and interrogate and see how we can be competitive because the way it is now is that patients from Zimbabwe are also driving business in India,” Chimedza said.
He said there was need for the medical sector to adjust and adapt before being forced out of business by high charges.
“This is the danger that we have as a nation and we need to look at it and see what are our cost drivers are and what is it that we need to do. As we move forward, it will not be business as usual. We will need to introspect on it.”
He said he was shocked to hear that flying to India for treatment had become cheaper than getting treatment here in Zimbabwe.
“We know you are working in a tough environment, but you have to be clear as to what you want to achieve.
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“What we want to achieve as government is that all our patients should be treated here locally, whether in the private or public sectors.”
Health minister David Parirenyatwa is on record advocating for construction of specialist health centres in the country to stop patients from seeking similar services in foreign countries.
Zimbabwe is reportedly losing large sums of money yearly as more and more people, including top politicians, continue flying out for specialist medication.
