At a time when the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is marking its 10th anniversary with prospects of improving service delivery, investigations conducted by the Daily Heritage reveal startling bottlenecks that have fraught accessibility of the health care system at some NHIS accredited facilities.
A woman in her early twenties who was assaulted by her boyfriend and was badly in need of medical examination to enable the police ascertain the degree of assault was turned away by health officials of the Port Medical Centre in Tema (formerly Port Clinic) over her inability to pay a sum of GHc50.00, despite being an NHIS card bearer.
The Port Medical Centre also operates a policy where the NHIS card works only in the morning and not in the evening, irrespective of one’s degree of injury or economic background.
The nursing officer on duty told the assaulted lady to take the police report back to the Tema Regional Police Command for them to indicate on the form that she indeed needs to be taken care of medically by officers of the Port Clinic before medical examination could commence.
The implication of that order was that the lady could have lost her life if her condition was precarious considering the hustle she had to go through to get back to the Regional Police Command.
The lady, who was visibly in pain as a result of the assault on her, sadly walked out of the doors of the health facility with her NHIS card in hand without access to health service.
This was not without tongue lashing from some of the nurses who blamed the teenager for her predicament. "As a woman, you must know the type of men you run your mouths at. If you could not control your tongue and you have been beaten, what do you expect us to do? Just learn to respect men," the nurse blurted out in front of this reporter.
“If the doctors take care of you, you are charged GHc50.00, but if you are detained you will be expected to pay GHc80.00. If you cannot afford, please go to the Tema General Hospital, this is a private clinic,” is the well-rehearsed chorus the officials tell every prospective patient.
The exploratory team of the paper also gathered that many patients had their NHIS cards rejected.
The nurses gleaned Ghc80.00 from the team as payment for treatment and special bed, as the regular beds had been occupied.
Another worrying spectacle the paper picked up was that health officials also offered unsealed drugs to unsuspecting patients, and monies were charged for it, without recourse to the health implications it poses.
