UNCERTAINTY surrounds treatment for Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) patients at the Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) in Dar es Salaam following the end of a 10-year Wellcome Trust research programme at the country’s leading medical institution.
Parents and guardians of children with
Sickle Cell claim that they were not informed in time of the end of the
programme, only to be forced to pay for the service when they turned up
for the usual clinic appointments.
Some of the patients who had travelled
to Dar es Salaam from as far as Tabora Region and Rufiji in Coast
Region, were referred to regional hospitals in Dar es Salaam; Temeke and
Amana, where they were also differed to a later date, without receiving
any treatments.
The programme had 6,000 patients, most
of them children accompanied by their parents coming from different
regions in the country, some of whom are forced to stay in the city
waiting for their appointment dates.
The MNH Acting Director General,
Professor Lawrence Museru, told reporters that when the programme ended
on March 31, this year, the SCD patients were put back to the normal
system while those who will not need the national hospital’s expertise
will receive treatment in hospitals near them.
Prof Museru confirmed that there was a
research programme that required all SCD patients to go to the MNH for
research and treatment, purposes, noting that this resulted into many
SCD patients going to the national hospital even when most of them did
not need the hospital’s expertise.
“We would like the society to recall
that even before the programme, MNH still provided health services to
SCD patients referred to the national hospital.
Those claiming that the MNH has stopped providing the services have their own vested interests,” Prof Museru noted.
As Prof Museru provide that
clarification, earlier in the day, a SCD activists and a parent of a
child with the disease, Ms Yasmin Razak said parents and guardians of
SCD patients were not informed earlier that the programme had ended,
leaving many parents stranded as they were unable to pay for the health
services as required by the MNH.
Ms Razak said since November last year,
the MNH were informed on the end of the programme in March and told to
look for ways to provide the service to the SCD patients but no response
was provided.
“They did not respond; neither did they
inform the regional hospitals to set up clinics for SCD patients. So
when the programme ended, the MNH informed more than 700 of the 6,000
patients to stop going for free health service,” she explained.
She said the programme provided free
health service to the 6,000 patients, while paying US 2,000 dollars
monthly as rental fee of a building to MNH. “Wellcome Trust had asked to
use the building for free, so they could use the money to provide
health service to SCD patients but the MNH had refused,” she charged.
According to Ms Razak, she contacted
relevant authorities, including the then MNH Acting Director-General,
Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner, who was not aware of the issue and
directed her to contact the Regional Medical Officer, Dr Grace Maghembe,
but nothing come out of it.
“I also contacted the Deputy Minister
for Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Dr
Hamis Kigwangala, who promised to look into the matter...all we are
asking is for the government to intervene and see that SCD clinics are
set up on those regional hospitals,” she explained.
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