THE Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) has asked medical aids to pay for baby immunisation as part of a preventative medicine plan.
This was in response to a paperwork bungle halting the supply of free government vaccines for babies to private clinics and pharmacies in Nelson Mandela Bay.
New mothers will now have to pay more than R1000 for private stock if they want to avoid queues at state facilities.
BHF spokeswoman Heidi Kruger said: "[We] support the inclusion of immunisation into the risk benefits of schemes. In fact, in 2010 BHF put forward a preventative care package which included an expanded programme of immunisation for adoption by schemes." But medical aids have implored new mothers to make sure their medical saving accounts have sufficient funds to pay for vaccinations.
Melisa Leander, who runs baby clinics in Port Elizabeth, said the cost of private vaccinations were prohibitively high and said they were already turning mothers away.
"I fear that we will see the immunisation rate drop significantly over this," she said.
Immunisation coverage in the Bay for babies under the age of one is 85%.
Before the stock crisis, patients were charged R40 which covered the cost of syringes and alcohol swabs.
Eastern Cape Health Department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said delivery of state vaccines to private clinics in the Bay was still stalled.
"We are still waiting for the paperwork," he said. - Estelle Ellis