NHIS indebtedness: Suppliers threaten court action

Many health facilities in the Ashanti Region reportedly are being threatened by suppliers with court action over huge unpaid medical supplies.

Dr. Alerxis Nang-Beifubah, the Regional Health Director, confirmed this at a performance review meeting in Kumasi and said the unfortunate situation had come about because of the delay in the reimbursement of the care providers for their services by the National Insurance Authority (NHIA).

He said the hospitals were now finding it difficult to procure medicines due to their over-sized debts.

The severe financial distress, he said, had been worsened by the high utility bills, adding that “some hospitals are almost getting bankrupt running their generators”.

The meeting provided the platform to review the performance of the regional health directorate, discuss planned activities, share best practices and strategize to surmount challenges.

“Universal access to health care; the role of the community” was the theme and it brought together health professionals and other stakeholders including chiefs, civil society and health-based non-governmental organizations.

Dr. Nang-Beifubah said despite the challenges, they made some achievements and attributed this to innovation and commitment by the health workers.

He cited the decline in maternal deaths from 184 in year 2014 to 178, last year.

At the same time, still birth rate climbed down from 1.46 per 1,000 births to 1.45 per 1,000 live births.

Besides, family planning acceptance shot up to 22.2 per cent from 19 per cent.

Dr. Nang-Beifubah said mass immunization coverage in the region was generally above the national target of 90 per cent.

He spoke of scaled-up surveillance on communicable and non-communicable diseases, especially the epidemic prone ones – Ebola and cholera, and said that paid off as the region did not record any such outbreak, during the review period.

He, however, expressed deep worry about the poor emergency services with only 26.5 per cent of health staff running emergency services in the hospitals having received the requisite training.

He gave the assurance that every effort would be made to improve the situation.

Nana Kwaku Amankwaa Sarkodie II, Sewuahene, announced the release of a 120-acre land for the construction of a regional hospital to ease congestion at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), the nation’s second largest referral facility.