We have to save the hospitals to save patients

The Auditor-General’s report for the 2011/2012 financial year revealed that public hospitals are losing billions of francs in unpaid patient bills. Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament on Tuesday, the directors of Central University Teaching Hospital, Kigali, and King Faisal Hospital admitted that their institutions were making losses in non-recoverable medical bills.The report, plus the testimony of the directors, saw MPs ask government to look into drafting a flexible debt recovery mechanism for public hospitals. Although this is something hospitals themselves could work out, the government has already been alerted and urged to respond. This means a concerted effort is the way to go.Such a mechanism, if in place, will ensure that the many accident victims Police and other Good Samaritans drop at emergency wings of public hospitals would be traced back to their relatives or homes for the purpose of recovering accrued medical bills.Cases of medical insurance lacking enough funds to clear bills whose service hospitals cannot stay offering, or of patients passing on in hospital without immediate relatives to attach the bills to, would be easily manageable.Hospitals cannot operate on a cycle of losses. We live in an era where diseases are becoming more complex, which calls for up-to-date and trend-by-trend mode of tackling them. But with losses accruing in billions of francs, a lot of service delivery is hampered.Without proper debt recovery mechanisms in place, hospitals have been unwillingly writing off non-recoverable debts every passing financial year. While it might not be glaring, this trend definitely handicaps some departments of public hospitals.A nation that is surpassing the Millennium Development Goals on health cannot afford to have public hospitals that lack the dream service delivery because huge amounts of money go into the imaginary incinerator.The solution legislators have proposed should be prioritised in the public health sector. Hospitals need to function optimally to save the patients.

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We have to save the hospitals to save patients