Another Programme Crashes

Another social intervention programme has collapsed and with that, more ado for the average Ghanaian. A couple of days ago the announcement came rather subtly about how patients, when they flash their National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) identification cards, will be attended to in public health facilities but would have to go and buy the necessary medicines.

The health insurance scheme, which the downtrodden in society hailed to the high heavens when its fruits began to be savoured, has crashed like the school feeding programme.

The situation we find ourselves in now was predicted when the Finance Ministry and the National Health Insurance managers were engaged in an unnecessary trading of accusations over whether or not the former had actually released funds lodged with it for the insurance scheme.

We found it amazing that in a modern world of record keeping, thanks to ICT, the issue of whether or not funds had been released or not should form the basis of an argument. That was exactly what happened until our arrival at this landmark.

The General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Dr Serebour, yesterday explained how some doctors had not been paid their salaries for the past seven months.

The health delivery picture in the country is dire and it is worrying when those who should fret over it and take the necessary action continue to display denial traits.

How can we address our challenges when we are in total denial of the realities on the ground? Indeed, that is one factor which has led us to this state.

We have to take another look at the manner state institutions are managed. When the health insurance programme was started, a manageable number of staff was able to steer it to the heights it reached until this point of degradation.

With the initial direction of funds from the sources as by law established, the organisation grew and with that the employment of more staff, most of them party activists. A bloated staff strength and the engagement in ambitious projects such as the sponsorship of students, children of ruling party apparatchiks and sympathisers raised the overhead cost. The ability of the scheme to undertake its mandatory and constitutional demands of ensuring that subscribers are treated in health facilities began to wane.

The fiscal indiscipline factor at the state level has doubtlessly afflicted newly created institutions such as the NHIS.

As a ready requirement for registering voters in the country, the ruling party jumped onto it by registering foreigners from neighbouring countries who were provided easy passage into the country to come and vote for the NDC – another factor which expedited the crash of the programme as it became a ready source of medicare for some of these foreigners living on the fringes of our common borders.

The restoration of the lost glory of the NHIS should be a matter of exigent concern to government and the relevant stakeholders.

Health delivery is a critical area which should be spared the recklessness associated with central government.