Darlington Obaseki, the chief medical director of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) has called for a review of the nation’s healthcare insurance scheme to reduce out-of-pocket expenses and debt burden on patients.
Obaseki made the call at the hospital’s end of year party and prize award ceremony to staff at the weekend in Benin City.
The UBTH boss, however, lamented the increasing amount of revenue the hospital lost annually to waiving medical bills for those unable to pay.
According to him, our health care insurance is still not working enough both at the federal and state level. Every year, we waive close to N100 million for patients that can’t pay their medical bills. Last year (2020), we had almost 400 patients in that category.
“Where is that money coming from? N100 million of services rendered to patients were not paid for. I do not know the number yet for this year but as we speak now, we have a lot of them in our wards and we will try to assist.”
“The problem is knowing those patients with genuine financial needs. Some people pretend that they can’t pay for their medical bills even when they have the money. We have a medical social service who go and meet relatives of sick people for support.
“Sometimes the patients’ relatives abroad will even call and send money to patients to offset their bills, yet some of the patients will divert the money for something else and say that they do not have money.
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“We know that the economy is very hard. We are aware, yet, we have not increased prices including the cost of food for patients. Our prices are still the lowest in this country. But Nigerians need to be aware that those who are unable to pay their medical bills are not just poor people; you may be wealthy but if something that you are not prepared for happens to you, then, you may need millions”, he said.
He disclosed that in order to make the tertiary hospital a reference point for others as well as to cut medical tourism in the next four years, beginning from 2022, the management is putting in place more specialised services to be delivered to patients.
Speaking on his plans for the coming year, Obaseki said a dialysis centre with many beds will be opened in the next one month to cater for those with kidney dysfunction and bladder problems.
“There are so many services. For example, people with stones in the bladder, kidney do not need to come for open surgery because we have a machine, like an ultrasound, that breaks the stones. We are the only government hospital with such equipment.
“We are the leading centre in Cancer care in Nigeria and, hopefully, by next year, we will install our new cancer treatment machine. We already have one called brachytherapy.
“In the coming year, there will be a lot of transformation. We came up with a plan in the first four years called the strategic reform plan where we itemized 169 specific things we want to do in 2017 and, now, we have finished 2021. Before 2022, a new plan will come out where we will also itemize what we want to do for the next four years”, he added.
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