Millions for chief’s kidney

GOVERNMENT has tapped into a yet to be formalised N$10 million medical fund – designed to assist State patients with life-threatening medical conditions – to send a Kavango chief to the United States for treatment.

Cabinet last month announced the formation of a Co-ordinating Committee ‘to process requests for special financial assistance for medical treatment for State patients’. It also ‘approved the establishment of a trust account under the Ministry of Health and Social Services to consider applications for financial assistance for special medical treatment,’ Cabinet said in a statement issued on October 26.The Namibian confirmed with the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Calle Schlettwein, on Wednesday that the Co-ordinating Committee has not been formed yet.The nomination of committee members is still pending, while the N$10 million is still to be released to the trust account.Despite all this, the Ministry of Health wrote to the Ministry of Finance that ‘money be released’ from the N$10 million fund to pay for the kidney transplant of the Shambyu chief, Hompa Angelina Ribebe, Deputy Health Minister Petrina Haingura told The Namibian.Haingura revealed that the procedure in the US would cost the State US$300 000 (N$2,23 million).Haingura also said that the Health, Finance and Foreign Affairs ministries were part of the decision to have the chief treated in the United States.However, it has come to light that Ribebe is a member of the Public Service Employee Medical Aid Scheme (PSEMAS) and should therefore be treated as a private patient.On Wednesday, Schlettwein told The Namibian that it had been established that Ribebe is a member of PSEMAS and that ‘there is no question that PSEMAS will cover some of the cost – at best, up to 95 per cent of the cost’.Despite this, however, great pains were taken to bypass the structures meant to be set in place for the special fund for needy State patients in order to get the chief to New York. When asked about this contradiction and contravention of rules given the purpose of the fund, Haingura said she was unable to comment.But besides the fact that Ribebe was flown to New York to undergo a procedure that could have been conducted in South Africa for a fraction of the cost, the point of contention is that the chief is not a State patient and should have been treated under her medical aid, and not at the expense of the Namibian taxpayer.Cabinet approved the establishment of the medical fund because it had been ‘confronted by serious, uncommon medical conditions for which lower-income groups cannot afford treatment.’The list of conditions to be covered by the fund includes organ transplants, which cannot be performed in Namibia.It is understood that Ribebe needs a kidney transplant because of complications from diabetes, and that one of her sons was identified as donor for the transplant.The Chairperson of the Kavango Chiefs’ Council, Paulus Shikongo, on Wednesday confirmed to The Namibian that Ribebe had left Namibia for the United States around Friday last week, just three weeks after Cabinet announced the establishment of the Committee.Ribebe was accompanied by her son and a chaperone, he said.It is understood that such a transplant can be done in South Africa up to five times cheaper than in the United States, for the same quality of care.Asked whether South Africa had been considered as an option, Haingura said yes, but added that Ribebe had been treated by a doctor in New York last year.’It’s good for the one who knows you to treat you instead of going elsewhere,’ she said.Some critics speculate about a political motive behind the decision to send the chief to the US instead of South Africa for treatment.According to some sources, Ribebe comes from an area seen as fertile ground for two opposition parties – the All People’s Party and the Rally for Democracy and Progress. According to these sources, sending the chief to the United States instead of to South Africa – allegedly at her own insistence and not that of doctors – was an opportunity for Swapo to gain political mileage.Haingura, however, says that politics ever played a role in approving the trip to New York.’The decision was based solely on saving a life,’ describing the chief’s condition as life threatening.nangula@namibian.com.na