Six organisations to provide quality health care to the poor

Six international health organisations have formed a consortium to provide affordable and quality healthcare targeting the poor in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria, to help reduce the incidence of avoidable but endemic diseases in those areas.

Under the name African Health Markets for Equity (AHME), the organisations, including the Population Services International, Society for Family Health, Grameen Foundation, Pharm Acess International and Marie Stopes International, who is the lead partner, would empower private health providers to enable the poor to benefit.

Research has shown that private providers of health are the first source of care for the majority poor in sub-Saharan Africa and in Ghana the private health sector is dominated by chemical shops that serve as the first point of call for many rural poor.

Mrs Faustina Fynn-Nyame, the Country Director of Marie Stopes International, said at the opening of a three-day workshop for members of the AHME and allied health partners from the Ministry of Health in Koforidua that the AHME’s aim was to increase the number of private providers and expand the scope of services from mainly on reproductive health to include other priority health issues.

She said malaria, acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, nutrition, maternal care, tuberculosis and HIV and AIDS were critical to health provision in all the operating countries including Ghana and would expand to cover those areas.

Mrs Fynn-Nyame said the consortium would also support equitable access to care for the poorest people through demand-side financing strategies including community-based health insurance and loan facilities to enable health facilities at the private sector to expand and resource their facilities to meet the demands.

Dr Safia Zachariah, Chief Director of the Ministry of Health, said the private sector was catering for more than half of the population and therefore the ministry recognized that the public sector could not meet the demands all alone.

She said the ministry had put measures in place to step up services provided by the private health sector to augment the efforts of the public sector and expressed the hope that a better cooperation between the AHME and the respective ministries of the beneficiary countries would be a benefit for the poor in Ghana and Africa on the whole.

The Municipal Chief Executive for New Juaben, Mr Alex Asamoah, said the consortium and its focus on the poor in Ghana was welcoming news.

He said despite the success stories of Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), access to quality healthcare remained a challenge for many people.

Mr Asamoah said in the Eastern Region, 12 percent of health providers in the region are privately owned hospitals, clinics, maternity homes, and health centres, emphasizing the point that the private sector was equally important as the public sector and therefore needed all the support to function.

He appealed to the consortium to, as part of their review of the private sector, to ensure affordable healthcare to the poor, look at the affordability of the services offered by the private sector.