Zambia Medical Association believes increase in placement fees isn’t beneficial: Mupeta

The Zambia Medical Association has claimed that the augmentation in placement fees for the medical students will affect Zambia's attainment of Universal Health Coverage.

Zambia's Ministry of Health has directed all institutions to increase the placement fees for students in their institutions. But Association General Secretary Francis Mupeta said the increase in rate will restrict the medical profession for the privileged few, as reported by Lusaka Times.

"For those studying Medicine or dental surgery, they be expected to pay K1000 per week. Now, let's put this into context. The second part of medical training is called 'clinical medicine'. This is where you actually learn the practice of the Art of medicine. In short, you learn to become a doctor. In the UNZA (University of Zambia) context, you spend eight weeks in one rotation and there are four rotations per academic year! So, these fees translate to K8,000 per rotation i.e., surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology and paediatrics. This makes a total of K32,000 per academic year," Dr Mupeta said.

"The current fee structure for UNZA is K28,980 per academic year for those in the second year. This amount is even less for those in Final year [about K17,000+]. Given that the School needs to pay health institutions, UNZA will have to surrender all its tuition fees to hospitals and look for the deficit to make K32,000."

"If UNZA decides to push this cost to students, which is the most likely, for one to study Medicine, they will need cough K60,980 per academic year for tuitions alone without other fees like; Student indexing, Library and Health. This is my honest opinion is meant to restrict the medical profession for the privileged few. This is will affect Zambia from attaining Universal Health Coverage, a song that will become a theme for bedtime stories of health access," Dr Mupeta added.

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