158/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
The IMF and the World Bank say users should pay for healthcare
services. As a result, In Mozambique the number of consultations at
the Maputo hospital dropped by 24 per cent between 1986 and
- In Malaysia - even before the crisis that broke In 1997-98 -
40 per cent of the population could not afford private healthcare
services (Balasubramanlam, 1996).
As for maternal health, In Nigeria the number of women using the
capital city's main maternity ward for childbirth dropped from 6,535
In 1983 (beginning of SAP) to 4,377 In 1985 and 2,991 In 1988
(Bruno Dujardin, Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine).
Social Costs Described as 'Side-effects'
In macroeconomlc terms, these health and education measures lead
to the disintegration of a debtor country's human resources.
The UNDP's 1992 report says that:
As a result of the economic crisis of the 1980s and the SAPs
adopted In response, social spending has been sharply reduced In
a large number of heavily Indebted countries. This has had a direct
effect on the population's standard of living, Infant mortality,
school enrolment and nutrition. (UNDP, 1992)Through the prism of IMF and World Bank Ideology, however, the
'social costs' of SAPs are a 'separate' matter. 'Undesirable side-effects'
cannot be blamed on the economic model. They belong to a 'separate
sector': the social sector. According to the IMF and World Bank, the
social costs are compensated for by the 'economic benefits' of macro-
economic stabilisation. 'Social costs' are short-term while 'economic
benefits' are long-term.
Economic Consequences of Adjustment Policies
Production for the domestic market Is severely depressed as a result
of reductions In real salaries, Import liberalisation, and tax and price
reform.
IMF measures are theoretically designed to help countries
restructure their economies In order to create a surplus In their trade
balance - thereby enabling them to repay their debts and embark
upon a process of economic reconstruction. In fact, the exact opposite