Free dialysis treatment to commence on December 1 - NHIA

The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) will roll out its free dialysis treatment for renal patients from December 1, 2024.

Dr. Da Costa Aboagye, the Chief Executive Officer of the NHIA, confirmed this during an interview with Joy News on November 25, 2024.

He explained that the NHIA expects the dialysis program to cost between GH₵20 million and GH₵57 million annually, depending on the number of patients needing treatment.

"And we can now confirm that the NHIS will need a minimum of between GH₵20 million to GH₵ 57 million annually for this dialysis programme. Where will we get the finds from? Initially, I told you that Parliament had approved some funds for us, and we will leverage our core corporate social responsibility," he stated.

Dr. Da Costa Aboagye further indicated that the NHIA had already launched a pilot program covering children under 18 and adults above 60.

According to him, it revealed that the number of patients needing dialysis was much lower than initially estimated.

"The numbers given to us by the association of people on dialysis was a deviation from the actual. The number given to us was almost 700, but the actual number we got in the pilot was around 400.

"With this, we now started our modelling of the pilot to see if, indeed, the National Health Authority can take up the cost of the dialysis," he added.

The Chief Executive Officer of the NHIA also stated that they based their projections on two research papers estimating the prevalence of end-stage kidney disease at between 24 and 39 cases per million people in the country.

"So, we look at certain indicators. The first thing was to look at the prevalence of people suffering from kidney disease in the country or end-stage kidney disease. We got two research papers; one put it at 24 percent per million population and the other at 38. 8 per a million population; basically 39 percent," he indicated.

JKB/AE

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