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Public hospitals to start charging patients -Health PS

Expectant mothers will now have to pay to deliver in public hospitals. The ministry of health has announced that public hospitals will have to charge a small fee for its services or counties to fund the services.

Though health is devolved, some functions we’re still with the national government.

According to the health principle secretary Nicholas Muraguri,  people who will be looking for health services will have to pay to avert the inefficiency problem in public hospitals.

Kilifi general hospital. PHOTO | BNC
Kilifi general hospital. PHOTO | BNC

Most hospitals lacked essential tools diagnosis. The government has allowed hospitals through the counties to find a better way of solving the health disaster.

Cotton wool and surgical blades are also some of the necessities expectant mothers have to pay for in public hospitals as the health facilities grapple with poor funding.

For example, in Kilifi County, as the report by The Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (Osiea) revealed, women are discharged to avoid sleeping on the floor due to lack of space.

Reimbursement for private facility delivery under Linda Mama is set at cesarean for cesarean and Sh6,000 for normal delivery.

The report recommends that this amount be raised to Sh16,000 for normal delivery and cesarean for a cesarean.

“Proper costing should be between Sh20,000 ancesarean0 for cesarean section and Sh8,000 for normal delivery to cover costs of drugs, cleaning, clothing blades, the equipment, what the mother will consume,” the report quotes an administrator at Pumwani Maternity Hospital.

2018 World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations that a mother who has delivered naturally should stay in the hospital for at least 24 hours for medics to monitor her condition and that of the baby.

In Kilifi, a mother confessed that she was discharged four hours after giving birth.

12 pave birth at 12 pm, it was a nor4 pm birth and at 4 pm, I was discharged because I could not sit on the floor and there was no bed because of congestion,” said the mother as quoted in the report.

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