Brigitte Weidlich
25 April 2008
Windhoek — STATE hospitals are to be equipped with computers to compile electronic databases of patients receiving treatment there, which would help to decrease the backlog of unpaid hospital bills, which stood at around N$9 million two years ago.
The new Permanent Secretary at the Health Ministry, Kahijoro Kahuure, told a Parliamentary Committee yesterday that the Windhoek Central Hospital was the first to start such a database, which would be rolled out to all regions although this would be very expensive.
"Since we started the computerised database at the Windhoek Central Hospital, we could collect over N$6 million from patients," Kahuure told the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
Another, less high-tech way to keep track of whether State patients have paid their hospital bills would be to write this into their Health Passports, said Hendricus Beukes, Director of Finance and Logistics at the Ministry.
Elma Dienda of the CoD was concerned that patients might be turned away if they had not paid.
This was not so, both Kahuure and Beukes reassured the Committee.
"We cannot have a patient lying there (in hospital) requiring treatment and refuse to treat him," Kahuure emphasised.
Dienda informed the health officials that during an official trip to the North, she and fellow MPs found out that Angolan patients paid the same fees as Namibians at State hospitals.
"There is a policy stipulating that foreigners should be charged more, but we found out that is not done at the State hospitals in the north," she said.
Dienda further requested that patients referred to other hospitals should receive copies of their case files so that they need not explain their ailments to each new doctor.
"At some State hospitals patients must often use sign language, because today a Ugandan doctor is on duty and tomorrow it's a doctor from the DRC and there are communication problems," Dienda said.
The chairman of the Committee, Johan de Waal, urged Kahuure and Beukes to start deducting outstanding travel advances from officials, since the backlog was N$904 936 for the financial year ending March 31 2006.
Kahuure, who joined the Ministry in August last year, said steps had already been taken in this regard.
Beukes told the Committee that the Health Ministry had not overspent during the 2006-07 financial year and kept within its budget.
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