WAHO to develop plan for universal health coverage in West African

Accra, Feb. 7, GNA - Members of West African Health Organisation (WAHO) are meeting in Accra to develop an action plan for the generalisation of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Specifically, ECOWAS countries would be reviewing progress made towards universal health coverage and share ideas on the way forward.

The three-day consultative meeting from February 6 to 9 would create the platform for ECOWAS countries to understand their challenges, similarities and possibility of resolving the problems, Dr Dogo Mohammed, Executive Secretary of Nigeria Health Insurance Scheme and Chairperson of WAHO said.

UHC refers to organised health care systems built around the principle of universal coverage for all members of society, combining mechanisms for health financing and service provision.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Dr Mohammed said the WAHO meeting would bring to the fore approaches that had worked in other countries, and those that did not, as well as create an atmosphere for networking and communicate online in sharing experiences to ensure universal health access for all citizens in the Sub-region.

He noted that in collaboration with the World Bank, WHO and other stakeholders in addition to WAHO's political will, UHC in the sub region was expected to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Mr Sani Ali, Professional Planning Officer of WAHO, told the GNA that with regional integration, there was the need to harmonise systems such as UHC in the Sub-region.

Delving into an UHC research conducted by WAHO in Ghana, Benin, Niger, Guinea Bissau and Senegal from August to December 2010, he said the outcome revealed that these countries had various mechanisms put in place to abandon health care user fees, which were driving people into poverty, in favour of some manner of national health insurance scheme.

Mr Ali said only Ghana seemed to have made significant progress towards providing universal health coverage through a national health insurance scheme for the majority of the citizenry.

"In cases where health insurance plans have been introduced, premiums are proving to be as prohibitory as were user fees and that there have been problems collecting them in some nations and premium-based models, for the most part, have not generated the financial resources needed to sustain health care systems," he said.

Mr Ali noted that countries were slowly moving in the direction of universal health coverage and national health insurance plans, but had no policy framework to back them as Ghana had done and that there was no harmonisation of schemes in the other four countries.

The study, he said recommended that countries put in place policy framework to guide them, hold national consensus with providers to dialogue and decide how best to fund health care.

Mr Ali said it was for that reason the WAHO meeting was expected to come up with an ECOWAS regulation to standardise modus operandi of member countries.

In Ghana, government introduced a national health insurance scheme in 2005 financed from monthly deductions of 2.5 per cent of government worker's contribution to the social security fund, a direct premium of between .80 and per year for non-governmental workers and a 2.5 per cent national health insurance levy on goods and services.

The Ghana scheme has innovative ways of covering the poor, the vulnerable and a comprehensive premium exemption policy for children, pregnant women, the elderly and the indigent.

According to the National Health Insurance Authority as at December 2010, nearly 75 per cent of the country's roughly 24 million people were registered with the scheme and about 70 per cent of enrollees are exempted from paying premiums.

GNA