Africa-Press – Tanzania. OVER 315 poor patients have been exempted from paying at least 500m/- in medical services bill at the Haydom Lutheran Church (HLC) Hospital in the past two years.
The health facility, which is a designated regional referral hospital, exempted the poor patients after failing to pay for the services.
The HLC is one of the hospitals that run under the public-private partnership whereby the government contributes between 17 and 19 per cent of its annual revenues.
The facility’s Managing Medical Director Dr Paschal Mdoe said in 2020 they exempted 200 patients who were supposed to pay 350m/-, adding that last year 150 patients who were supposed to pay 115m/- were also forgiven from paying the debt.
Dr Mdoe stated this yesterday at Haydom town, Mbulu District, Manyara region, during a Haydom Marathon 2022 to mark 75th anniversary of the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA).
NCA is the hospital’s grant manager which manages Norwegian public funds to enable the hospital become a sustainable faith-based hospital in the country.
The NCA also supports dissemination of the hospital’s innovations to reduce maternal mortality and deliver high quality and affordable health services.
Dr Mdoe elaborated that as the hospital marked the NCA anniversary, the marathon was also aimed to raise 50m/- which will beef up hospital’s capacity to support poor patients who cannot manage to pay for medical services costs.
By Saturday morning, the hospital managed to raise 20m/- through the marathon and looked forward to raise more funds.
“Our objective is to ensure that hospital’s services are continually improved and make sure that we don’t refer any patient to zonal referral hospital,” Dr Mdoe stated.
Commenting, NCA Country Director Berte Marie Ulveseter said the organisation operates in 20 countries globally and it has been in Tanzania since 1960’s.
“The Mbulu Lutheran Church Diocese has been our close partner. We are dealing with a lot of works in Tanzania to support communities,” she said, adding: “we are very happy working with different partners in bridging gender gap.”
She acknowledged that Tanzania has made strides in bringing gender equality as more women now are involved in the decision making processes.
The CRDB Bank’s northern zone office was the main sponsor of this year’s Haydom Marathon.
On his part, CRDB Northern Zone Manager David Peter said the health is among three key priorities in the bank’s Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR), followed by environment and education.
He said the bank has supported the event since it was aimed at supporting health services to poor people.
For More News And Analysis About Tanzania Follow Africa-Press
