Lawmakers on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have protested the charges imposed on patients at Mulago Specialised Women and Neonatal Hospital, yet the facility is collecting only Shs7Bn in revenue annually, compared to around Shs31b annual budget the facility receives from the government.
Muwanga Kivumbi (Butambala County), the PAC chairperson, asked the hospital administrators to provide the breakdown of costs charged to patients, and wondered if the revenue collected from the patients is worth having the facility continue charging Ugandans who are also servicing the $34.14 Million (Shs129.220Bn) acquired from the Islamic Development Bank for its construction.
“A facility that charges this much also continues to encroach on the public purse and it is highly subsidized by government and when you look at the trend of your NTR, it is about Shs7Bn a year; would that justify why we shouldn’t find the money as Government top up for what they could have lost in NTR. With all the ambiance you have and everything, the revenue is nowhere, it is very low. If we allocated you additional Shs7Bn and told you from today onwards offer free services, will that be fine with this entity?” noted Muwanga.
Administrators of Mulago Specialised Women & Neonatal Hospital say women who have normal delivery on the Gold card are charged Shs1M, while normal delivery under Platinum is Shs2.5M, C-Section under silver is Shs1.3M, while holders of the gold card that undergo C-section are charged Shs2.5M, while patients on gold card are charged Shs2.5M, while the VIP platinum cost Shs4M for patients who have C-section.
Upon receiving the rates, Muwanga wondered what would happen if the government instead boosted the hospital’s budget by the amount of revenue collections and have Ugandans complete the payment of the loan used to build the hospital.
“We are still even paying the loan that built this facility, so we want to know this facility, beautiful as it is, why it charges Ugandans. We continue to subsidize you, your NTR is just Shs7Bn maximum, your budget is Shs31Bn so if we are paying you, how much are you charging us? Justify why you charge that money,” said Muwanga said.
However, Dr. Evelyn Nabunya, the Executive Director at Mulago Specialised Women and Neonatal Hospital, said the decision for the facility to charge Ugandans was taken by Cabinet, which also ordered for the establishment of a Waiver Committee to deal with cases of Ugandans who can’t afford rates charged by the Hospital.
“The decision to be able to charge for services came from Cabinet and a team of Cabinet members came here to verify why people should pay and they guided the team on how to set these charges and they also guided that there should be a waiver Committee to be enable Ugandans who can’t afford the services to be able to access them,” said Nabunya.