The War Memorial Hospital has been reconnected by the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) after a recent disconnection from the national grid over a Ghc1.2 million debt.
This was confirmed by Madam Alima Bamie, the Customer Service Officer for NEDCo, Upper East Region. She spoke on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show today, Friday, October 13, 2023.
“War Memorial Hospital, Navrongo, was disconnected on Tuesday, October 11, 2023. We already had an agreement during the first phase of the exercise in May. The agreement was that they would pay Ghc 30,000 every month towards their arrears, in addition to the payment of their current bill. They made the payment once in May, and they have made no payments again. There was no communication to us as to why they could not meet their agreement on something. They were not paying the Ghc30,000 towards their arrears, but we expected that at least they would pay the current bills that came. They didn’t do that till we got there.”
“When we got there, they were trying to explain their problems to us, but we told them that at least, based on what they promised us, they should calculate that and pay it to us, but that was not forthcoming,” she recounted.
Madam Bamie explained that the managers of the hospital explained that they were owed by the NHIS and had to rely on that money to be able to pay debts owed to NEDCO.
Meanwhile, as of yesterday, October 12, 2023, the facility was reconnected to the national grid.
The War Memorial Hospital in Navrongo, the capital of the Kassena-Nankana Municipality of the Upper East Region, is owed by the National Health Insurance Authority to the tune of Ghc1,107,597.91.
This is according to the Auditor-General’s report on the public accounts of Ghana – Ministries, Departments and other agencies (MDAs) for the year ended 31 December 2022.
Additionally, the report revealed that a total of 123 health institutions across the country are owed more than Ghc 47 million.
“Regulations 3.8 of the National Health Insurance Regulations, 2004 provides that a claim or payment of health service submitted to the scheme shall be paid within four weeks after receipt of the claims from the Health care facility unless there is legal impediment. We noted that the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) owed 123 Health Institutions a total amount of GH¢47,617,164.46 for services rendered.”
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
