The Ministry of Health has assured that although there is a plethora of challenges confronting the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Ghana will not return to the cash-and-carry system in accessing quality healthcare.
Public Relations Officer of the Ministry, Robert Cudjoe, said on Wednesday that the scheme is faced with financial challenges, fraud on the part of some service providers, and several others.
He said the government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has, however, taken steps to deal with these bottlenecks as a way of restoring the glory of the scheme.
Mr Cudjoe explained that if the NHIS fails, then the entire state has failed since the greatest asset of every nation is its citizens having access to quality healthcare.
Speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Wednesday June 21 in connection with the lack of logistics at the Jirapa Government Hospital in the Upper West Region, Mr Cudjoe said, among others, that some NHIS service providers had inflated their claims in order to cheat the government.
He said such development would only cripple the scheme and, thus, asked those guilty of such practice to desist from it and be truthful in their claims.
He said: “There is so much malfeasance in the health sector as far as the NHIS is concerned. Some of the providers inflate their claims to swindle the government, but this is wrong and they will need to desist from that.
The country doesn’t have money and so we appeal to the service providers to be truthful in their claims as a way of saving the government some money. There are records of some of them (service providers) who have inflated their figures as a way to swindle the government.
When asked whether there is the tendency of the state going back to the cash-and-carry system, he said: “We don’t have to get there, we can’t get there and we will never get there.
“If that happens, then it means as a state we have failed. I don’t think we will get there. We all know there are challenges facing the NHIS but the government will resolve those challenges, of course, with the help of every citizen.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
