The Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) has underscored the need for a national dialogue to review the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to make it more sustainable.
The association said such an exercise could bring on board all stakeholders to collectively and objectively find an acceptable solution to the perennial crisis confronting the scheme.
“CHAG would wish to support the government to review, re-tool and re-engineer the NHIS to ensure that it becomes more sustainable, more efficient, effective and equitable and accountable to the utmost satisfaction of all stakeholders comprising the government, NHIS service providers, the public and patients who depend very much on it,” the Executive Director of CHAG , Mr Peter K. Yeboah, said.
Reacting to the decision by the government to pay one out of the 12 months’ arrears the NHIS owed service providers, he said a robust and revised NHIS was in the best interest of all Ghanaians.
Mr Yeboah said the NHIS continued to be one of the best poverty intervention strategies that the country had ever had, describing it as a national asset and the best hope for the entire healthcare system.
Government’s reimbursement plan
Last week, the government, in a reimbursement plan for NHIS service providers, paid one month out of the 12 months arrears owed the service providers.
The Ministry of Finance released GH¢76.6 million to the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to settle part of its indebtedness to the service providers.
According to a source at the ministry, the amount was released in April, while GH¢80 million was paid to the NHIA in February.
In spite of the payments, service providers appear not to be happy because, in their view, the amount is paltry.
The NHIA is in arrears of GH¢514.7 million to service providers.
The Chamber of Pharmacy, Ghana has threatened to stop medical supplies on credit to health service providers under the NHIS if the government does not release a substantial amount to defray the debts.
Mr Yeboah said the CHAG felt such a national dialogue was important and ought to be considered seriously, “so that we can address this perennial problem that has bedevilled the NHIS from 2012 to date”.
Shocking
He said the CHAG received the information that only one month out of the 12 months’ arrears owed the NHIS providers had been paid with distress and dismay.
“We find this inconceivable given the adverse effect the indebtedness has wrecked on the Ghanaian healthcare system,” he noted, adding that the re-imbursement plan the Health Ministry spoke of was not all embracing.
The executive director said such a plan needed to have involved all stakeholders to include the government, the service providers and the NHIS.
Virtual collapse of the healthcare system
Referring to the threat by the Chamber of Pharmacy, Ghana to withdraw supplies of medicine to service providers, Mr Yeboah said it was the ultimate crisis service providers had feared for some time now.
He called for an immediate intervention from the government with a sense of priority, urgency and crisis consciousness, describing the position of the chamber as the “end point for the crisis situation confronting the NHIS service providers”.
“The one month reimbursement does not assure service providers that the government attaches some level of priority, crisis consciousness and a sense of urgency, and that is more devastating and distressing,” he stressed.
He said a health system that did not guarantee the supply and dispensing of quality and efficacious medicine, availability, affordability and accessibility was a virtual collapse.
NHIS versus galamsey
“We see this as a serious crisis situation that requires immediate attention,” Mr Yeboah said, stressing that even though he supported the Media Coalition Against Galamsey, “this situation is far worse than the galamsey menace we are all mobilising against.
“While we can manage the galamsey and postpone action, we cannot postpone the health and livelihoods of mothers, children and the aged,” he stressed.
Mr Yeboah, therefore, appealed to civil society organisations, including the media, to join in the campaign to support the NHIS to make it an important tool for universal health coverage.
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