HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS FACE SERIOUS FINANCIAL CRISIS (PAGE 29)

Almost all the hospitals providing service to holders of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis are in serious financial crisis.
They generate little or nothing from patients under the NHIS and the reimbursement for services rendered is irregular. Some of the service providers have their debts dating back to the time the scheme was launched in the metropolis.
According to the health service providers, hitherto patients made ready payment but currently, they were not generating enough, just enough to take care of the day-to-day running of the hospitals.
About 60 to 70 per cent of the patients who visit the health facilities in the metropolis and other peri-urban centres are members of the scheme.
Therefore, the problem of healthcare providers, including the regional hospital in the metropolis, is the imminent collapse of the system if people have to access their services without corresponding funding.
The insurance scheme owes health centres millions of Ghana cedis being the cost of services rendered. The situation was no different at various hospitals the Daily Graphic visited and if care is not taken to resolve the delays associated with reimbursing the health facilities it could have a serious effect on their operations and maintenance.
The hospitals would not be able to meet other overhead expenses.
At present, the facilities are struggling to cope with the ever-increasing numbers of members of the scheme but there is no fast-track way to reimburse them. This, coupled with the introduction of free medical care for pregnant women, has compounded the problems of the healthcare service providers.
The government’s health facilities receive little government support. The subventions, if any, are also not regular, forcing them to owe suppliers of certain basic needs millions of Ghana cedis.
The hospitals are expected to generate enough to support their operations and yet they are not profit-oriented. The internally generated funds of the facilities are not even a quarter of what they spend a day or a month.
To the administrators, health directors and their financial units, the NHIS is a perfect policy strategy for everybody to sign on to, but the delay in reimbursement would have a serious repercussion on its sustenance.
The state health institutions also seriously lack infrastructure and are also understaffed.
The deplorable facilities at the hospitals are not attractive to doctors, nurses and other health workers.
The Effia-Nkwanta Hospital for instance has many weak structures with serious cracks.
The hospital cannot take care of renovation expenses because the chunk of its income is locked up under the NHIS. The scheme is reported to owe huge sums to other government facilities and about GH¢600,000 to the Effia-Nkwanta Hospital alone. When the Daily Graphic visited one of the crowded wards, this reporter saw a nurse demanding payment for the drink she had bought for a patient although the drink the patient was provided before taking her injection was covered by the health insurance package.
Hospital administrators, medical directors and the NHIS Secretariat have to ensure that the laudable insurance scheme achieves its aim of providing affordable health care for the people of this country.
The inability of stakeholders to resolve their differences should not affect the poor who see the scheme as a saviour.
The service providers and the secretariat must work hand in hand to remove any bottlenecks facing the system.
If that fails the good intention of the government in providing quality and affordable health care through the implementation of the national insurance scheme will have failed.