Source: Public hospitals owed $100 million – NewsDay Zimbabwe March 28, 2017
PUBLIC hospitals are battling to contain a ballooning debtors’ book as a number of patients are failing to pay for services rendered, Parliament heard yesterday.
By XOLISANI NCUBE
Health and Child Welfare secretary Gerald Gwinji told Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee that after the last audit, the debt had ballooned to over $100 million, with the figure swelling with each passing year.
Gwinji said hospitals had also found it difficult to use debt collectors to recover the money given the negative perception by the public and dishonesty by others.
“As a government, we have a policy to the effect that no one should be denied health service because they cannot pay.
“Therefore, we find ourselves in the position where we have to attend to the clients and make a follow-up later. But the challenge arises when you try to make a follow-up, you will realise that most of them give false names, false addresses and even false names of their next of kin,” Gwinji told the committee chaired by MDC-T MP Paulina Mpariwa
Gwinji, who had been summoned to clarify on the Auditor-General’s report for 2013-2014 which raised a number of irregularities including failure to adhere to public accounting policies, said the debtors’ book stood at $20 million in 2013.
“We have institutional debtors, particularly those funded by Treasury and have their own separate votes like social welfare, police, prisons and the army. These have also not been able to retire them and we also continue to give them services,” Gwinji said, adding medical aid societies were being slow in settling debts.
On the other hand, hospitals also owed service providers in excess of $40 million and the secretary said due to lack of funding from government, it had been difficult to retire the debt.
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