AKUTH introduces cashless payment system to check financial leakages

The Aminu Kano University Teaching Hospital has introduced a cashless payment system for patients and clients to check financial leakages, an official has said.

The Deputy Director, Information in the hospital, Mrs Hauwa Muhammed, said this in an interview with newsmen in Kano on Monday.

Muhammed said the hospital introduced the policy, following complaints of financial leakages by patients and other hospital clients.

She further said that the policy was part of the management’s strategies to curb the activities of “unscrupulous elements” in the hospital.

According to her, the hospital’s management has deployed money agents in all money points.

“Patients without bank’s automated teller machine cards can pay cash through money agents plus a token fee payable as bank charge,” she said.

Muhammed, therefore, solicited the cooperation of both the hospital patients and clients to ensure the success of the policy, in order to enable the facility to serve them better.

Meanwhile, the new policy has elicited mixed reactions from some patients in the hospital.

In an interview with newsmen, some of them expressed reservations about it, while others described it as a welcome idea.

A patient at the National Insurance Health Scheme Clinic, Mr Umar Abdullahi, said it was a welcome development.

Abdullahi said that the policy would eliminate the problem often experienced by patients, who could not come to the clinic with enough cash and unable to do online payment.

“The financial sector globally has gone cashless and there is absolutely no harm in doing so here.”

Mr Felix Joshua, who supplies pharmaceutical products to the hospital, also described the development as a good one, pointing out that many hospitals had already gone cashless.

However, a patient, Mrs Amina Baba, frowned at the extra fee charged by the money agents, saying the hospital, rather than patients, ought to bear the bank charges.