Malawi risks higher maternal deaths as pregnant women shun Cham hospitals
Health minister has said government is worried that the number of women visiting Christiam Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) hospitals has significantly dropped because of high fees the facilities are charging.
This has triggered new fears of high mortality rates which the government said recently was going down.
Speaking in Parliament, the minister Peter Kumpalume assured the House that the government and CHAM will on December 20, 2015 hammer a new memorundum of understanding that will enable pregnant women and patients seek free medical care in the church run hospitals.
“This MOU will now cover some diseases that were not in the previous agreements. We are on target for the start of this new arrangement will start in January 2016. There are no public hospitals in some areas and people seek medical care from CHAM hospitals,” he said.
Kumpalume said the agreement has taken time to finalise as CHAM demanded enough compensation for the services whilst the government to make sure it would be paying the right amount of money for the services.
He also said the ministry has finalised its mapping exercise that will see the construction of new health facilities to ensure that people do not walk over eight kilometres to access public health facility.
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The service level agreement (SLA) btwn gvt and Cham has to be revisited and should include paeds covering malaria and acute respiratory infections if sustainable development goals that aim at curbing down martenal and infant morbidity and mortality are to be realised!!
Its not about building many health facilities, but rather having medicines in the already few facilities