National Paramedical Private Practitioners Association of Malawi (Napppam) has called on the government to start subsidising services that private clinics offer in rural areas to enable people access health services.
Speaking yesterday at the Napppam Annual General Meeting where they discussed challenges affecting the health sector and how best the private sector can contribute in promoting quality healthcare services, Napppam president Davis Kapota said among the challenges that Napppam is facing is the cost of drugs.
He said a number of people in rural areas are not able to pay for the medicines.
Kapota said the government needs to come in and subsidise the drugs for people in rural areas to get treatment in private clinics.
He said the clinics will account for the subsidy and give reports on the number of people that have benefitted from the subsidised medicines.
Said Kapota: “Most of our clinics are in rural areas where many people are poor and if you take the cost of anti-malaria for example, an average Malawian cannot afford to pay K15 000. So that is why we are pleading with the Ministry of Health to subsidise these drugs to promote equity health services.
“If the drugs are not subsidised, some people will not manage to pay. In other areas, government facilities are far and people only have private clinics to get assistance.”
Ministry of Health malaria control programme senior disease control officer Precious Chinyama, who was the guest of honour, said funding cuts by donors have affected the government in terms of resources and it will be difficult for the government to subsidise services of private clinics.
He said in the case of malaria, the government relies on donor support and it is working to cover the gap created by funding cuts.
“Looking at the gap left, we had to stop other activities to prioritise procurement of drugs and other medical products,” said Chinyama.
In an interview yesterday Health Rights Education Programme executive director Maziko Matemba commended Napppam’s proposal, saying it is the way to go in ensuring that people in every corner of the country have access to health services.
“The duty of the government is to make sure there are health services everywhere. Whether provided by private or public, what is most important is that the government needs to make sure that people in the rural areas who are handicapped in terms of resources should not suffer financial hardships in accessing healthcare,” he said.
