Can social security schemes help poor accident victims?

By Editor

Editorial Cartoon

 Is it any surprise that three-quarters of road accident victims are too poor to pay their medical bills?

 

With 80 per cent of Tanzanians living in rural areas and many of those in the urban centers found in slums, it is only to be expected that more than half of the people admitted to hospital after being involved in road accidents cannot afford the treatment they need.

 

Even the very basic of check-ups can be very costly and, as Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) officials have confirmed, the costs road and other accident victims are required to cover include operation fees – and these can be high indeed.

 

How, then, could poor Tanzanians surviving on little more than a thousand shillings a day be  expected to cough up several million shillings in operation fees?

 

The simple answer is that they cannot, and asking them to do so would only worsen their physical, mental and general condition.

 

It is no minor issue that MNH is reporting losses of over 50 million shillings every year in just one department – the Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute (MOI), which is charged with attending to accident victims.

 

This is shocking in that it is not a new development and both the hospital and the Health and Social Welfare ministry would have long devised workable means of mitigating the loss while also fighting harder to minimise accident-induced fatalities.

 

It is quite possible, working hand in hand with the ministry, to talk banks, insurance firms, other hospitals and various other institutions into coming in with badly needed support.

 

By working with these institutions, the hospital could provide the needed care with expenses partly covered by private firms that would be repaid by the patients in affordable instalments.

 

Of course, some patients would fail to meet the conditions of these support schemes even if they were set up, but that is where the government would step in.

 

Given with the Health ministry’s meagre budget, the government could plan to pay hospital bills for genuinely poor accident victims for recoveries of the costs to be made only where appropriate – in the spirit of cost-sharing.

The government could also form a Road Accident Emergency Fund and enforce mandatory but affordable medical insurance cover on the public.

 

Once covered, the people would receive the treatment they need. Should one survive an accident, the money from the Fund would provide for the turnover of the premiums plus interest earned over the years to the beneficiaries’ retirement funds.

 

This brings us to another solution with respect people’s lack of funds with which to cover their emergency hospital visits – social security schemes. 

 

As the country’s six social security funds work to get more and more members, they should be reminded on the need to exploit further coverage in respect of such emergency cases. Fortunately, some of these are already in the business, and few regrets have been reported.

 

Muhimbili and other hospitals should ensure that these social security schemes visit all patients and talk them into registering for medical insurance cover. It can work. And we know the schemes are awaiting invitations.