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| Mr Leonard-Shang Quartey of Essential Service Platform (with the microphone ) addressing the Media. Sitting are other members of Ghana Universal Access to Healthcare Campaign |
Story: Mary Ankrah
POLITICIANS and political parties have been
urged to make healthcare issues a priority.
They have therefore been urged to
incorporate ways of ensuring free access to healthcare delivery in their
manifestoes for the December elections.
The Ghana Universal Access to Healthcare
Campaign (GUAHC) said at a press conference held on Tuesday in Accra.
Addressing the press, Mr Leonard-Shang
Quartey of Essential Service Platform observed that despite some efforts being
made to improve healthcare, quality healthcare delivery across the country was
not encouraging due to lack of requisite equipment, trained health personnel,
discrimination against clients with NHIS cards and inadequate funding of the
scheme.
He therefore advised Ghanaians not to just
listen to campaign promises but demand from political parties to show proof of
how they would reform the health system when elected into office to ensure universal
basic healthcare for all.
“We need to also enquire whether the health
policies and programmes proposed in political parties manifestoes are
realistic, achievable and would guarantee universal basic healthcare to all
citizens especially the poor and vulnerable,” he stated.
He called on the electorate to vote on
issues and clearly defined policies that lay out plans towards achieving
universal access to quality healthcare for all Ghanaians as well as policies
that stipulate clear plans for the removal of all forms of user fees and out-of
pocket payments.
The GUAHC is a civil society organisations
network, including Alliance for
Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR), Isodec, Essential Service Platform,
Send-Ghana and Coalition of non-governmental organisations in health advocating
for free universal access to healthcare in the country.
Mr Quartey noted that the healthcare in the
country was still predominantly cash and carry affair although the introduction
of the NHIS was supposed to abolish that system, pointing out that 34 per cent
representing 16 million of the population were covered in the NHIS as
stipulated in the 2010 annual report of the National Health Insurance Authority
(NHIA).
He observed that while upper and middle
income earners were able to afford the NHIS premiums, the majority of the poor
were unable to access basic healthcare service.
“The inequities were striking, with 20 per
cent of upper wealth quintile men having NHIS cards, compared to 10 per cent of
those in the lower wealth quintile. For women, the comparable percentages were
29 per cent for the top wealth quintile verses 17 per cent for the lowest
wealth quintile”, he pointed out.
Still on the NHIS, Mr Quartey observed that
the mandatory premium required by the NHIS for non-formal workers needed to be
reviewed and that though the scheme
provided a comprehensive package of service to people with valid NHIS cards, in
reality, majority of NHIS clients did not actually benefit from most of those
services.
He indicated that the NHIA 2010 annual
report also stipulated that contributions from annual premiums to the total
inflows were less than five per cent as compared to Valued Added Tax (VAT) and
Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contributions and that the
administration, operation and logistical costs of collecting the premiums were
about two times the total amount generated from it, meaning that the premium
based NHIS was not cost effective in its current form.
“The contribution from VAT to the NHIS
funding, which is over 70 per cent, has proven that taxed based funding is
efficient, effective, predictable and sustainable. Ghana should concentrate on
those elements rather than the premium which we spend more resources in
collection than receiving”, he recommended.
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