The General Secretary of the Private Health Facilities Association of Ghana, Frank-Torblu Richard has called for the decentralization of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
He told Alfred Ocansey in an interview on 3FM Sunrise Morning Show on Tuesday that there have been challenges with payment of capitation to private health facilities for their services to the scheme by the government due to the centralized system.
Frank-Torbu again expressed displeasure with the pricing regime for medicines and services under the NHIS.
“We buy our medicines at market price but we are obliged to sell them at the set price by the government. Government is to facilitate the procurement of drugs for us but that hasn’t been the case,” he said.
Unlike government medical facilities that procure directly from the central or regional medical stores, Private Health Care Providers buy from the open market or even pay cash when they buy from the central store.
The Private Health Facilities Association of Ghana warned of a partial withdrawal of their services. To this end, they are going to stop selling generic drugs which are on the NHIS drugs list.
In order for us to be in business, instead of stocking the generic medicines which are on the NHIS list, we will rather stock the branded ones and sell them at the market price to the patients, and nothing prohibits us from that. Government has become insensitive to the plight of Private Health Care Facilities“, Frank-Torbu reiterated.
“Government should post some of the trained medical officers to us. Even if we have to pay part of their salaries, we are ready to meet government halfway,” says Frank-Torbu.
“Most of the hospitals will have to reduce our operations to clinics because the quality and quantity of the health workers needed to run our facilities are not available since we are losing them to the search for greener pastures,” he added.
