Heath Centres Charging Pregnant Women N10k Delivery Fee In Trouble

Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in Cross River State which have been charging pregnant women as much as N10, 000 delivery fee may have landed in trouble.

This is because the government in the state has declared its resolve in punishing officials of such PHCs.

The resolve to punish PHCs in the habit of such high charges on pregnant women was a major fallout of the integrated meeting with PHC Ward Focal Persons and the state Basic Healthcare Provision Scheme in Calabar today.

The Director General of the Cross River Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Janet Ekpenyong,  issued the threat, in the following words: “The PHCs are supposed to charge just N3,000 to pregnant women who come for delivery to purchase consumables and this is only when they don’t come with their own consumables as stated on the list initially given to them

“We are looking at ways to encourage pregnant women to patronise health facilities instead of traditional birth attendants.

“While we totally condemn these actions, we have set up a team headed by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health to ensure that culpable PHCs and personnel are adequately penalised,” she said.

Providing a background the efforts of the state government as relating to healthcare delivery, She said out of the 196 PHC facilities in the state, over 130 had been accredited for the Cross River Basic Healthcare Insurance Scheme.

A report in the Punch also mentioned the Director-General of the Cross River Basic Healthcare Provision Scheme, Mr. Godwin Iyala, as underscoring the importance of the scheme to the universal healthcare provision.

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Fifty laptops, he said, would be distributed to the PHCs selected for the Basic Healthcare Provision Scheme.

“Every month the PHCs will be paid capitation based on the number of enrollees they have, after proper monitoring and evaluation by our third party administrators that will go round the facilities from time to time.”