Min blames medical aid crisis on Ca$hbert

Source: Min blames medical aid crisis on Ca$hbert – NewZimbabwe 20/06/2016

FINANCE Minister Patrick Chinamasa has found a scapegoat in former Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) CEO, Cuthbert Dube for government’s continued failure to relay members’ medical aid subscriptions to health insurers.

Chinamasa said the government was still incapable of paying the monies because the funds were being mismanaged by the companies.

He was speaking during a question and answer session in the Senate last week.

A protracted stand-off between medical aid societies and doctors reached tipping point this past week when the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZiMA) announced that its members will, beginning July 1, start demanding cash upfront from patients on medical aid cover.

The doctors said their businesses now faced viability challenges after continuously failing to receive payment for their services while the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority has not stopped demanding its dues for invoices which were not yet honoured by medical aid societies.

ZiMA said its members were owed more than $220 million.

However, government, which has been collecting monthly subscriptions from those on medical aid cover, has come under fire for failing to pass on the monies from health insurers, in the process contributing to the current logjam.

Asked when government was planning on disbursing the monies owed to health insurers, Chinamasa was quick to find a scapegoat in the disgraced former PSMAS boss.

“I have no straight answer for Madam Senator. All I can say is that there is a background to it,” Chinamasa said.

“There was a time when what we paid to PSMAS was abused and mismanaged and it created a big hole in its finances. It is not easy to fill that hole.

“So, I would not want to give any specific indications but we have the capacity to fill that gap.”

Without giving any specifics, Chinamasa added: “We continue to do our best to support PSMAS because all the civil servants basically are members of the PSMAS. We have also urged them to ensure that the organisation is properly managed.”

When Dube was forced out of PSMAS following revelations around his mega salary three years ago, the former ZIFA president was taking home up to half a million in monthly wages.

His immediate assistants also pocked huge salaries running into hundreds of thousands.

Chinamasa chose to focus on Dube and his management.

“Those salaries that we read about cannot be sustained from the premiums that we are being paid and that, basically, is what has happened to PSMAS,” he said.

“We had a CEO or Chairman earning half a million, others forty thousand US dollar and so on.

“It was not sustainable, but I want us to understand that mismanagement and abuse of office created a huge hole in the finances of PSMAS and no matter what we give, it is like putting water into a bottomless pit.”

Chinamasa said government will “leave no stone unturned to bring PSMAS back to life because we consider the welfare of civil servants paramount and we have to attend and ensure that their welfare is not prejudiced.”