The Government says it is considering enacting legislation to limit the amounts that medical aid societies can use for overheads from subscriptions made by members.
This will be done to ensure that a large portion of the contributions that they collect go towards providing services for members.
Speaking at the annual Zimbabwe Medical Association Scientific Congress held in Harare on Friday, Harare Provincial Medical Director (PMD), Dr Innocent Hove, said the Government is concerned with medical aid societies’ failure to properly manage their members’ contributions.
Hove, who was representing Health and Childcare Minister Douglas Mombeshora, said:
Our medical aid societies should ensure that those who run funds do not just take subscriptions without providing a commensurate service.
The same efficiencies they have in collecting money should be cascaded to managing the fund, ensuring internal controls, instituting anti-fraud systems and payment of service providers.
We will be firm about it and we will strengthen our capacity as a Ministry to regulate the industry going forward.
He also said urgent measures should be taken to address brain drain which is weakening the country’s health delivery system further. Said Hove:
We are losing millions of dollars in training, and we feel that we should get a portion of that money by retaining our trained and qualified health professionals.
We bear quite a cost to train a nurse and even more to train a medical doctor considering that we need to retain our investment which is our professional.
As of January 2023, Zimbabwe had lost more than 4 000 doctors and nurses to the UK and other countries since 2021, according to the Health Services Board.
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