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Mauritius: Soaring health care costs
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L'Express (Port Louis)
6 September 2007
Posted to the web 6 September 2007
Saoud BACCUS
Port Louis
It is a right, sine qua non, and not a privilege to have access to universal health care. But it does not come cheap. It is costing the country Rs 4.5 billion annually in public expenditure. And this despite having a parallel private health care system used primarily by those who can afford it.
There is no denying that there is a funding crisis, and if it continues unabated, something will eventually give, more than just the quality which, according to popular belief, is already under the scalpel.
Though remarkable for a small third world country, free medical care is under a lot of pressure. The public purse is straining to keep pace with runaway costs to provide this service for no charge at all. And every now and then, we hear about the need to find ways to cut costs because the country cannot afford it any longer. We keep hearing about introducing a user fee, which I think is a fair deal, but political expediency will kill that idea before it is even tabled.
The cash-strapped state must now find innovative and creative ways to alleviate the ever-increasing financial burden to run a free public health care system. Somehow, the country must find other contributors, for, simply put, it cannot afford to be the sole funding agency.
One way to bring in cash is to encourage public donation. Why not encourage individuals to donate money to the hospitals? If we donate money to religious or cultural organisations we belong to, often it is because we are approached by these organisations. Yet, we are never approached by hospitals. Why?
The most effective way to approach fund-raising is to run it like a business venture. Appoint a fund-raising manager whose sole function is to raise private fund for the hospital. Some shrewd public campaigns would sensitize the people to the worthiness of donating money to hospitals. I am fairly optimistic that once people realise it is for a worthwhile cause, they will open the cheque book.
Take the case of the cardiac unit. It has given many people a new lease on life. Many patients have undergone successful by-pass surgery in Mauritius itself now that it is available here. These people would be too happy to donate a fraction of the cost that they would have incurred to have it done privately. Right now, if I wanted to give some money to a hospital, I would not even know where to start.
The government should pitch in as well. Make donations to hospitals tax deductible. Individuals and private companies can get a credit on their tax return, a further incentive to donate money. For the state, for every extra rupee donated privately, it is saving roughly 85 cents on what it would otherwise have to fund.
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Encouraging private donations can also bring about a sense of inclusive community belonging, and who knows, may be this may encourage the population at large to be more altruistic, and therefore less selfish. In the end, the people will end up being the bigger beneficiary.
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| Copyright © 2007 L'Express. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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