NHIS is Not Working, So I now Resorts to Cash and Carry – Health Minister admits
The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, has admitted that service providers under Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), are not providing insurance but rather engaged in extortion.
He claims that instead of benefiting from the scheme, poor subscribers are being overcharged and denied necessary services that they have already paid for.
The Health minister made this unfortunate disclosure in Kumasi when he addressed stakeholders in the health sector at a conference.
The event brought together health partners, traditional leaders, and private investors in the health sector, representatives from the World Health Organization among other stakeholders.
The four day conference which started on the 18th April 2023 will be used to review the major issues affecting quality health care delivery and prescribed implementable solutions policy for the sector.
Speaking on the theme “Enhancing Primary Healthcare Approaches Towards Achieving Universal Health Coverage”, Health Minister Agyeman Manu tasked stakeholders in the sector to ensure excellence in healthcare delivery across the country.
The Health Minister stated that the complaints from National Health Insurance Scheme subscribers suggest that the scheme is not functioning correctly.
The minister questioned why public health facilities in the country are practicing ‘cash and carry’ a practice which has been abolished in Ghana since 2008 and replaced with National Health Insurance Policy.
The minister disclosed that some public health facilities across the country are over charging and charge GHC1,000, a practice he described as illegal.
“From the end user point of view, it appears the National Health Insurance scheme is not working across the country. I’m a patient and I know what it is, and I interact with a lot of people not only in my constituency, my region but elsewhere and the complaints that are coming about how those who have subscribed to the National health Insurance are treated in almost all our facilities. To the extent that even CS some are paying more than a thousand cedis from their pocket, quite a number of our facilities are on the health insurance benefit package and it is a sad thing. Those of us like you can afford so health insurance was not made for us in the middle class but the very core people’’ he explained.
He cited his own experiences, claiming that he had to pay for healthcare services out of his pocket when he visited hospitals like Ridge and the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC), even though he is an NHIS subscriber.
“For example I have a health insurance card, my Kids have it, but we don’t use them because where we live and where we go for medical care they don’t accept the card. I pay when I go to the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC). I don’t present my insurance cards, but the poor woman in that village down there, it is a very sad situation. Should people die when they come to your facility for care and they don’t have money to pay while they hold an active insurance card ? So let’s think about them. So my plea to you all here is that yes health insurance delays payment of claims but of late they are paying small, small so why should we extort from these people’’ he pleaded.
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