Cancer patients from Lesotho are not being treated in South African hospitals because the Lesotho government has not paid off long-term bills.
Lesotho debt crisis
A lot of cancer patients in Lesotho are in danger because their country doesn’t have any good chemo centers after this event.
Currently, Lesotho owes the Free State government in South Africa a hefty medical bill of R211 million for medical care.
The consolidated report on the annual budget and estimates of income and expenditure for the financial year 2024/2025 shows that this debt has been building up for several years.
The Economic and Development Cluster portfolio group presented the report to the National Assembly of Lesotho on March 8, 2024.
It also discussed an extra M108 million that wasn’t planned to be spent. This money was supposed to pay for referrals to South Africa from Queen’s Queen’ Mamohato Memorial Hospital for the next fiscal year.
Costs increasing, ”heavy load”
In an exclusive interview with Newsday, Health Minister Selibe Mochoboroane revealed that the country owed South Africa money and discussed the problems caused by the unpaid debts. “The debt has grown over many years, and unpaid arrears are making it worse,” he said.
Mochoboroane said that people with cancer have a heavy load because each treatment costs at least M200,000. Every month, the government spends more than M200 million sending people to South Africa.
He was upset that it took so long to get appointments because of all the referrals, and he mentioned cases where patients had been hurt or even died because of this.
The group stressed the importance of building a Cancer Treatment and Management Center right away because the referral costs were increasing. The Mochoboroane
