Hospital fees up again

By Tererai Karimakwenda
06 October 2006

Consultation fees for city clinics and hospitals in Harare have gone up again forcing more people to seek alternative methods of treatment. As of October 1st consultation fees were increased by 140% from Z$500 to Z$1200. Maternity fees went up as well leaping from Z$ 10,000 to Z$ 16,000- an increase of 60%.

The hospitals themselves have scarce resources. Our correspondent Simon Muchemwa said the City of Harare department of Health no longer issues the cards on which visitation records are kept. Instead patients are required to bring their own notebooks which are stamped at the end of each visit.

Muchemwa said thousands of people flocked to the City Sports Centre in Harare last weekend seeking miraculous and spiritual healing from Brother Ken, a famous preacher from Kenya. Muchemwa said he spoke to many who are turning to these preachers because they cannot afford to pay hospital fees. Brother Ken is related to Pastor Chris, a preacher who has become extremely popular on Zimbabwean television. Also attracting more people are the Apostolic sects or “Mapostori”. Muchemwa said people are even seeking help from them with employment issues.

Bishop Dieter Scholz SJ, the recently ordained bishop for the Chinhoyi Diocese, recently told a German Jesuit magazine: “What would have been unthinkable a few years ago is now happening daily: families no longer collect the dead bodies of their loved ones from the mortuary deep-freezes. Since they anticipate this even when bringing the sick to the hospital, they give false names. …Now and then the corpses are being burnt and the ashes buried in a mass grave. They call it a pauper’s burial. But it is no proper burial at all, and the paupers are not the dead, but the surviving family members who somehow try to survive on the borderline between life and death.”