Story: Mary Ankrah
About 700 inmates of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital (APH) were yesterday signed onto the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to access healthcare service free of charge.
The exercise, undertaken by the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), is intended to save the hospital from huge sums of money which it spends on the medical bills of the inmates.
The registration of the 711 inmates brings to 10,000 the number of inmates of psychiatrics, leprosaria and orphanage across the country so far registered under the NHIS by NHIA.
Speaking at a ceremony at which the NHIA presented registration cards of the inmates to the APH, the Chief Psychiatrist of the hospital, Dr Akwasi Osei, said the management of the hospital had challenges in accessing health care for the inmates.
That, he said, was because in most cases the management had to plead with nurses in other hospitals to give the inmates health care, particularly when the relatives of the inmates did not show up to pay the medical bills.
Dr Osei was, therefore, full of praise for the NHIA for registering the inmates onto the NHIS and called on the government to expedite the review of the NHIS.
The Deputy Minister of Health, Mr Rojo Mettle-Nunoo, after inspecting facilities at the hospital, noted that mental health structures were not meant for residential purposes.
For that reason, he said, cured inmates who were still at the hospital could be sent home to reunite with their families and loved ones.
Mr Mettle-Nunoo said after the NHIS law had been amended, psychiatric patients would have full benefit of NHIS exemptions that the scheme would make available for all mentally ill patients.
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