Pharmacies have increased the prices of drugs by between 30 and 70 percent over the past three weeks citing foreign currency shortages, the Association of Health Funders of Zimbabwe (AHFoZ) said Thursday.
Medical aid society members have been querying why they are being required to pay huge shortfalls when procuring drugs from the pharmacies and the general response has been that suppliers had increased prices while medical aid societies had capped their own prices.
“We have capped our own prices and if we have to procure the drugs on behalf of patients then they have to settle the difference,” an attendant at one pharmacy run by a medical aid society said.
AHFoZ confirmed in a press statement that while some pharmacies were charging huge shortfalls, others were insisting on cash payments in U.S. dollars and rejecting medical aid cards and other payment methods such as debit cards, mobile money transfers and bond notes.
Zimbabwe uses bond notes as a surrogate currency running at par with the U.S. dollar which was introduced to ease a cash deficit in the economy.
The hardest hit are people who suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes who procure medicines every month and who at times have to go away without the drugs after failing to raise the shortfalls.
“AHFoZ is engaging the Retail Pharmacists’ Association (RPA) in an effort to resolve this problem. The RPA says it is engaging the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to seek an allocation of foreign currency so that pharmacies can revert to previous prices,” AHFoZ said.
It recommended that medical aid societies should approach individual pharmacies to negotiate contracts for their members “in order to alleviate their suffering”.
“It is our hope that this problem will be resolved urgently as drugs are crucial for recovering good health. Price increases or demands for cash at at the point of service in the current environment, where salaries are not being increased and had cash is unavailable, can only worsen the suffering of patients,” AHFoZ said.
The central bank is struggling to allocate foreign currency to all the sectors of the economy in the face of foreign currency shortages and in 2016 established a list of sectors that would be given priority for foreign currency disbursements.
Priority 1 includes net exporters who import raw materials and machinery; non-exporting importers of raw materials and machinery for value addition and import substitution; strategic imports such as basic foodstuffs, fuel and medicines; repayment of off-shore loans secured to fund production; payments for services not available in Zimbabwe and dividend payments.
Priority 2 includes bank borrowing clients in the productive sector engaged in critical and strategic imports.
Priority 3 caters for university and college fees for students already enrolled in courses abroad; cash depositing clients in the retail and wholesale industry and other borrowing clients engaged in the importation of non-strategic goods. Enditem
Source: Xinhua/NewsGhana.com.gh
