AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL

Page 7: Daily Graphic, March 1, 2012 Providing affordable and easy access to healthcare services is one of the major objectives of various Ghanaian governments, in line with desirable development targets. This has warranted the various governments to pursue alternative programmes to provide affordable healthcare services for Ghanaians. Without doubt, Ghanaians continue to face many challenges in accessing healthcare services throughout the country, in spite of those efforts and programmes. The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is one of such programmes. However, since the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) began implementing the pilot health insurance capitation programme in the Ashanti Region as a way of addressing the challenges in the payment of claims, there have been protestations and demonstrations against the exercise. With the exception of the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), other private health providers have withdrawn their participation in the scheme and resorted to the infamous cash-and-carry scheme. Only last Tuesday, the Health Minister, Mr Alban Bagbin, met stakeholders in Kumasi on the issue, with the view to finding an amicable solution to the fracas. Unfortunately, the meeting did not yield the desired result, as the parties stuck to their positions, warranting the minister to refer the matter to President Mills to take a decision on the issue. We agree that players in the private sector play a crucial role in the healthcare delivery system of this country, since not all communities have access to public health facilities. Even in places where there are public health facilities, some members of the public prefer to seek medicare at the private health centres, either for convenience or efficiency. These private healthcare providers certainly make huge investments in establishing their institutions, for which they seek to recoup their investment and maintain those facilities. The NHIA also has a responsibility to supervise the provision of affordable health services for Ghanaians, but in view of the challenges faced by the government in providing health facilities in all areas of the country, private healthcare providers were introduced into the NHIS with a view to expanding access to Ghanaians. But it appears that the pilot health insurance capitation programme has run into serious challenges, with private healthcare providers withdrawing their services. This has, undoubtedly, put many Ghanaians in the Ashanti Region in danger, since those seeking health services at the private centres will now have to pay before they are attended to. We do not want to believe that the private healthcare providers are putting profit ahead of the services they are to provide for their clients. We also believe that the NHIA has good reasons in maintaining the proposed rate of GH¢1.75 per subscriber per month. The Daily Graphic calls on the two parties to sit down and put their figures together to convince each other, and for that matter Ghanaians, why a particular figure is appropriate and adequate. As Nelson Mandela once said, “If you are not ready to compromise, you don’t negotiate.” It is our view that Ghanaians should not be made to suffer while these disagreements rage on. Life and health cannot wait for the parties to reach an amicable settlement, for which reason compromises are needed for our mutual benefit. We hope resorting to the cash-and-carry system is not meant to coerce the government into yielding to the demands of the private health providers. That system is certainly not the answer to the problem. The Daily Graphic proposes that the NHIA permits health providers opposed to the capitation programme to revert to the old system of claims payment, while negotiations continue, in order not to deprive the people of quality health care.