Community members and intellectuals in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State are questioning the legality of the 500 South Sudanese Pound (SSP) charge per patient at government health facilities across the state.
In 2021, the Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State Council of Minister passed a resolution to allow every government hospital to charge patients 500 SSP per visit as cost sharing.
The state government also recommended that the amount be used for development at the public health facilities, to improve service delivery.
A community member, who preferred anonymity, feared that the money was being misappropriated. She said that the state should have witnessed some tangible changes in the health sector in the past few years.
“If 500 SSP collected from the patients across the state on daily basis for many years was deposited in the government account, we would have seen development in the health sector in the state, but there is no sign of development at the hospitals,” she said.
When asked by Radio Tamazuj to rate the health facilities across Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, the source revealed that the hospitals were struggling with challenges related to hygiene and the poor pay for the staff.
A medical source at the Aweil Civil Hospital, who is not authorized to speak to the media, said the collection of the funds has been going on although he was not aware of the amount netted daily, weekly, or monthly and how the money was used.
A mother who had visited Aweil Civil Hospital for medication, Abuk Wany, decried the money being paid by the patients.
“I used to go there and they took around 4,000 SSP for registration and medical checkups and upon the prescription of medicines, the amount reaches more than 20,000 SSP. A small child’s medication costs around 15,000 SSP,” she said.
“I took my child to the Aweil Civil Hospital and she was registered with 300 SSP before her referral to the MSF wards because the latter does not charge,” Wany added.
Another patient complained that he paid for registration but was not given any drugs.
“I went to the Aweil Civil Hospital and the registrar ordered me to pay 300 SSP. After I met the doctor, he prescribed the medicines but when I went to the pharmacists within the hospital, they told me that there were no medicines and advised me to purchase them on my own,” he said.
The Director-General for Ministry of Health in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State, Dr Aleu Pioth Akot, said that the system was introduced as cost sharing at all facilities in the state following an order from the State Council of Ministers in 2021.
“We call this cost sharing and the money collected ranges from 300-100 SSP, but there are some exceptional situations such as children, pregnant mothers and students. The money is used immediately within a given hospital,” said Akot.
“There are some locations like Panthou Payam in Aweil South County, where buildings were constructed through the collections,” he disclosed.
On the corruption allegations, Akot said every government official was always accused falsely.
A resident of Aweil South County, only identified as Akot, denied that the local Primary Healthcare Center was built by the money collected from patients.
He said: “The construction of Aweil South County Primary Healthcare Center was done through the citizens’ contributions, there was no government nor did any organization fund the processes.”