The Member of Parliament for the Daffiama-Bussie-Issa District of the Upper West Region and member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, Dr. Sebastien Sandaare has described the National Health Insurance Scheme as ‘almost dead’.
He said in the New Patriotic Party’s desperate attempts to win power, they described the NHIS under the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama administration as a scheme in comatose.
Dr. Sandaare opined that as it stands, the NHIS is almost dead because of the gross mismanagement on the part of the government.
He said this when he spoke on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show today, Wednesday, May 11, 2022.
“One can say it is almost dead. They described it as comatose when they were trying to come to power. From that state of comatose that they thought it was, it has not been revived. We have rather realised that things are going down to a state where things are very terrible,” he said.
Dr Sandaare explained that the Scheme has virtually collapsed because funds for the scheme have not been given to the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to administer to partner health organisations.
“From the report that came to us from the National Health Insurance Formula which comes to Parliament every year for approval, we realised that what the Finance Minister collected was around Ghc2 billion. Out of that, what was released to the NHIA for the purposes of paying for services and other NHIA related activities was around Ghc120 million. You can see the gap. The question we are asking is that the over Ghc1.5 billion or so, where is the money?” he quizzed.
The MP for DBI explained that the lack of funds is the reason why patients who have subscribed to the scheme are only able to obtain paracetamol.
He said the current state of the Scheme defeats the purpose for which it was set up explaining that it was instituted to support “the poor, the needy and the vulnerable in society.”
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
