Public or private health treatment: patients caught between the rock and a hard place
By Roseline Moyo
On the 27th of December 2020 my husband dislocated his shoulder whilst playing with our son. This happened around 7PM. We tried to push the shoulder back into its socket but he was in so much pain. We decided to go to the nearest health centre, a private clinic in our suburb.
We arrived at the clinic at around 20:30. We were asked to pay a consultation fee of USD$20 which we paid on assumption that everything else would be covered on that fee.
After about 20 minutes, a physician attended my husband and said all he could do was administer an injection for the pain which required another USD$6. After the injection we were told an Orthopaedician would need to attend to the shoulder. The cost for the Orthopaedician was pegged at USD$100.
We decided to pay for the pain relief injection while we were trying to arrange for the $100 which we did not have.
My husband was given the pain relief injection but while we were waiting a nurse at the clinic saw our dilemma and told us that we could see an Orthopaedician at Harare Hospital, a government institution commonly referred to as PaGomo. We were told that government services were far cheaper than private clinics.
We thanked her and left for Harare Hospital. Upon arrival at PaGomo we went to the waiting area where we had to pay a small fee in local currency. There were a few people waiting to see the doctor but we waited close to 2 hours without being attended to.
Lucky for us, my brother-in-law met a friend of his who is a nurse at the hospital and he expedited the process for us to see the doctor. The doctor examined my husband and said an x-ray was needed. The same nurse friend then took my husband for the x-ray at 12 midnight. By the time the x-ray was done, it was now time for shift change. My brother-in-law’s friend and the doctor who had earlier attended to my husband left and a new crew came in.
The new doctor came in and sat for about ten minutes then left for a tea break that lasted about an hour and a half. To my dismay when he finally returned he only told us to go to Room 13 which was the trauma room, to see the Orthopaedician.
We had wasted close to 2 hours for nothing. We then went to Room 13 and waited another hour before the Orthopaedician came. He admitted my husband because the dislocation was so severe. In the Orthopaedic ward the nurses were wary of new patients because the feared the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) because they did not have personal protective equipment. This was quite understandable because some health workers at the institution had contracted the virus and died.
My husband spent the whole night in pain and was only attended by the Orthopaedician the following day at around 12 noon. He was immediately discharged after treatment.
This experience showed me that our health services need a lot of improvement especially in cases that are urgent. Ordinary people who have no financial resources to go to private clinics are dying before they are attended to at public institutions. Yes, the hospital fees that are charged in our public hospitals are affordable but the services rendered are very poor. Our Government needs to ensure that our hospitals have everything that is needed especially PPE as we are living in the COVID-19 era.
