Director-General of GHS to face Regional Security Council

Koforidua, March 29, GNA - The Eastern Regional Director of the Ghana Health Services (GHS) has been summoned to meet with the Regional Security Council on Wednesday to explain allegations levelled against some health workers for politicising the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and scaring people away from registration for the scheme. The Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Yaw Barimah, announced this at an inter-sectoral meeting of the Director General of the GHS, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, members of the Eastern Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC), and District Directors of Health Services in Koforidua on Tuesday.

He regretted that, information reaching the RCC indicated that, often, when some workers were given recognition and made in-charge of important national programmes, where they were expected to apply their store of knowledge for the benefit of the nation, such persons had disappointed the nation, because they were not bold enough to stand for what was sound and right.

Mr Barimah appealed to communities, philanthropists and religious organizations to support the Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) programme to succeed.

He advised the District Directors of Health Services (DDHS) to attend District Assembly meetings and make effective contributions to enable them get the maximum support to operate effectively. Prof. Akosa called for the review of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Drug List to make health care less costly to ensure financial sustainability of the Scheme.

He noted with concern that, the price of drugs on the NHIS drug list was more than those of the Essential Drug List and called for a review.

Prof. Akosa called on the District Chief Executives to support the CHPS programme and help bring health care closer to the people. He called on the Eastern Regional Minister to enforce the quota system in the training of health workers at the various nursing training colleges in the region to ensure that the region got the nursing population that it needed to implement its health programmes. The Eastern Regional Director of Health Service, Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyirah, appealed to the district assemblies to help get more people to register with the NHIS.

According to him, there were a lot of people, who were not indigenes and yet could not afford to pay the premium for the NHIS and therefore were hanging in-between.