'Ghana can pay totally for kidney care if we're committed, Kenya even pays for kidney transplants' – NHIA CEO

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye, has said, "As a country, I can tell you boldly, if we are committed, we can pay totally for kidney care."

Speaking about the high cost of dialysis in Ghana and the clamour for the NHIS to cover the treatment of renal cases, Dr Okoe-Boye made a few suggestions that, in his opinion, could make public funding of kidney treatment easy.

"First of all, politically, we have been going back and forth on funding to NHIS. Kenya even pays for kidney transplants. The reason is very simple: 90% to 95% of the funds are directly with them," he explained.

"Secondly, we can put some levy referred to as sin tax on some one or two products which are normally not consumed by the ordinary person but by people in a particular class and the inflows on that can go into a fund not necessarily with National Health Insurance."

"It can be the chronic disease fund or the peripheral disease fund which would go to the departments that take care of kidney care and other conditions like cardio diseases so that instead of the GHȼ700 cedis that is been looked at, you can retain GHȼ200 because GHȼ500 cedis has been paid for by this fund."

"Thirdly, we as a country can come together to take away all the taxes on any item that goes into kidney care. We can look at two or three consumables that affect the pricing and the state can procure them directly," he noted.

The renal unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital was recently reopened to outpatients after it was shut down in May this year. It was only accessible to emergency cases on admission.

It costs GHȼ380 per session.
A recent increase in the cost to GHS765 sparked public uproar, forcing the hospital to reverse it to the status quo.

During its closure to outpatients, 19 of them died, according to the Association of Renal Patients.

Korle-Bu charges the lowest amount for dialysis due to subsidisation by an NGO.

-classfmonline