The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has urged representatives of the public to register illegal charges at health facilities so that they can be dealt with appropriately.
Mr Abdul Latif Issahaque, NHIA’s Northern Regional Director, said that charging for NHIS-covered utilities at health facilities was an expense to both customers and the organization.
He said that such practices were counterproductive to the goal of the health-insurance program, which was established to render health coverage accessible and affordable to everyone.
Mr Issahaque was speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Tamale in response to reports that certain NHIS subscribers were being charged for treatment even though their subscriptions had not expired.
Subscribers to the National Health Insurance Program claimed they were expected to compensate for virtually anything done on them or needed for their care, leading them to believe the NHIS was ineffective.
When the GNA communicated with them at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), Tamale Central Hospital, and Tamale West Hospital to find out how NHIS subscribers rated the care they got, they voiced their concerns.
Mr Mantapa Siahadu Gad, a relative of a patient on admission, said the brother was moved from the Bimbi Hospital in the Nakpanduri-Nasuan District of the North East Region to TTH after falling from a tree on Saturday, March 27, this year.
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“We arrived at TTH at 1900 hours, but they didn’t start treating us until after midnight,” Mr Gad said. They prescribed medications for us to purchase, including bandages, for which we paid GHc245.00. They haven’t offered him any other drugs than what we bought. They wanted us to go have a CT scan on his head today (Monday). They say that the TTH does not have a CT scanner. So they directed us to a pharmacy just across the street from the TTH, where we completed the procedure and charged GHc480.00.”
He said that, despite being a legal NHIS subscriber, his brother was wasting too much money.
“Actually, I’m not comfortable about what’s going on because as he dropped, his head hit the dirt, and they have done nothing about it since we arrived. It gives me the impression that the NHIS isn’t working.”
A woman who did not want to be identified said she gave birth to a child at TTH on March 17 and was discharged on March 20.
“From what I’ve seen, I don’t believe the NHIS is as effective as it was before,” she said. I did not pay for a room, but I did pay for a number of medications, some of which were recommended for me to purchase outside of the TTH and cost about GHc5 and GHc10. Why is it that the NHIS is unable to cover those medications?”
Mr Alhassan Abdulai said he took his wife to the Tamale Central Hospital for care after she was involved in a car accident on Monday morning (March 29tih, 2021).
Mr Abdulai said a scan was performed on his wife’s arm and he was told he would have to pay GHc40.00 since it was not covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme. He said he charged the money but was unhappy with the situation.
Some families of patients at the Tamale West Hospital shared similar stories, claiming that they wanted the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to compensate some of the minor care they got at the hospital.
Mr Issahaque was dissatisfied that problems of charging customers for NHIS-covered facilities continued to arise, notwithstanding the fact that the NHIA’s management had conducted many meetings with hospitals to persuade them to stop doing so.
He said the NHIS protected about 95% of drugs used in hospitals, and that the NHIA must step up its inspection efforts to rein in the erring health facilities.
SOURCE: ATLFMONLINE
