BE BOLD TO INCREASE NHIA PREMIUM FOR SUSTAINABILITY-GOV'T. TOLD

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The Bosomtwe District Director of Health Services, Joseph Adomako has called on the government to be bold to increase the premium of the National Health Insurance Scheme so as to generate enough revenue to sustain the pro-poor health care policy. 

Such a decision, according to the Director of Health, could as well enable the NHIA to pay the Claims of its accredited health service providers who are now reeling under serious financial challenges from non-payment of their Claims for about eight months now. 

Mr. Adomako made the call at a durbar of health workers and other stakeholders in the health sector at the Saint Michael’s Hospital at Pramso in the Bosomtwe district of Ashanti. 

The programme was to commemorate this year’s edition of the Annual World Day of the Sick instituted by the Vatican about 23 years ago to draw society’s attention to the plight of people afflicted by various illnesses and the need for both health workers and society to show care, compassion and love towards such vulnerable people for their recovery. 

The Bosomtwe District Health Director corroborated concerns by managers of healthcare facilities regarding the crippling of accessible and quality healthcare to the people following the inability of the NHIA to pay medical claims to its providers since June last year.

 Already, the NHIA is indebted to government hospitals in the Kumasi metropolis alone to the tune of over two billion Ghana Cedis, while the management of the Saint Michael’s Hospital is owed about one- point-four million Ghana Cedis for eight months in Claims. 

Mr. Adomako disclosed that due to the serious financial challenges being experienced by the hospitals, some of them are now asking their patients to buy some of the critical items such as hand gloves required for their own treatment. 

Touching on other issues, the District Health Director explained that the government has decided to bear the electricity bills relating to Theatres, Out-Patient Departments and Maternity which are critical units of all the public and quasi-public hospitals.

 This is contrary to speculations that the facilities have been directed to pay all their utility bills. 

The Acting Medical Director of the Saint Michael’s Hospital, Dr. Samuel Yaw Adu said the non-payment of the hospital’s Claims by the NHIA coupled with the astronomical cost of ensuring reliable power supply has made running the facility very challenging, particularly in the infrastructural expansion of the hospital. He therefore appealed to the NHIA to pay the Claims to ease the problems.

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