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Golden Party of Zambia (GPZ) president, Jackson Silavwe, has alleged that the National Health Insurance Scheme, (NHIMA) is becoming a Public Health Sector Scam
Silavwe in a statement issued to Zambia Monitor on Friday said this was opposed to NHIMA ensuring universal access to healthcare for all citizens.
He said whilst most public hospitals were using NHIMA prescriptions to absolve themselves from shortage of medicines, NHIMA accredited pharmacies will ‘get rid of patients’ by claiming ‘unavailability’ of the same medicines.
“Our investigations have established that some NHIMA accredited pharmacies are turning away patients who immediately issue them with NHIMA prescriptions, on the pretext that they don’t have the medicines or the system is down,” Silavwe said.
He said nonetheless, when patients present themselves as regular customers with cash, the same pharmacies are willing to sell them same medicines.
Silavwe said the party has also unearthed that some NHIMA accredited Pharmacies are swapping medicines on the NHIMA prescriptions with cheaper alternatives of drugs compared to the regular cash customers.
He called on government through the Ministry of Health to urgently fix NHIMA if it is to benefit all our citizens equally.
“We further urge government to address the rampant shortage of medicines in hospitals to avoid subjecting patients to sick games between public hospitals and NHIMA accredited pharmacies,” Silavwe said.
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