The Public Education Officer (PEO) for the country’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Tapiwa Mleme Nyoni expressed fears over the tendency of late opening hours in most public health facilities; a situation that normally holds patients for hours before entering the examination room hence creating a fertile environment for corruption.
The PEO made the sentiments on 25th February 2022 in Salima at a consultative meeting on ad-dressing Drug Theft and Pilferage in public health facilities. The meeting was convened by the Network of Journalists Living with HIV (JONEHA) and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through AVAC under the COMPASS Africa Initiative.
“We made surprise visits to hospitals and one major thing that we observed is that of keeping patients for too long to make them uncomfortable. Since you are uncomfortable you are pressed to pay because you want to be assisted very fast to go home,” said Nyoni recalling that the habit of long waiting time was visibly noted during surprise visits conducted recently by the Bureau in Salima, Nkhotakota and Mchinji districts in the Central Region of Malawi.
She disclosed that to grasp the real situation on the ground such surprise visits are conducted without any announcements and that upon arrival at the facility the ACB officers behaving like any other recipient of care, buy a health passport, line up with others until they reach the facility’s pharmacy.
In Peoples Country Operational Plan 21 (The Peo-ples COP21 dubbed Liu Lathu; Our Voices) by the Civil Society Advocacy Forum (CSAF); a grouping of over 40 NGOs actively working on HIV and related conditions reports that if a person spends an extended time at a clinic simply to collect ART refills, there is an increased risk of that person disengaging from care.
It adds that long waiting times also affect the quality of services provided as healthcare workers have little time to provide adequate person centred information or care to people living with HIV.
The BMC Global Health Research and Policy report titled ‘Informal payments in public hospitals in Malawi: the case of Kamuzu Central Hospital’ published on 24 November 2021 says 80% of recipients of care and guardians had knowledge of informal payments and approximately 47% of respondents admitted making informal payments to access health services.
The report reveals further that 87% of informal payments were made at the request of a health worker pointing out that lack of knowledge, fear and desperation among recipients of care and guardians, low salaries for health care workers and lack of effective disciplinary measures were reported as key factors influencing informal payments.
