Telehealth Alone Cannot Heal the Pensioner’s Pain

My writing on pension issues is fueled by a steady stream of questions from pensioners themselves. Their lived experiences form the core themes of my work. While I am glad to champion their concerns for now, what they truly need is formal institutional support. For now, I remain committed to writing on their behalf and not only amplifying their concerns, but throwing light on some issues they find confusing.

I have written on SSNIT’s telehealth programme recently launched with all the pomp and pageantry in Accra. This write-up is an addendum, and possibly, others could follow.

Still on SSNIT’s Telehealth Programme

The launch of the telehealth programme for pensioners by the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has been widely celebrated in the media as a groundbreaking intervention for retired workers in Ghana. Indeed, every effort aimed at improving healthcare access for pensioners deserves commendation. The idea of allowing pensioners to consult doctors remotely without travelling long distances is commendable, especially for the aged, weak, physically challenged, and rural pensioners.

However, pensioners must also speak honestly and frankly about the limitations of the programme. Healthcare access without healthcare affordability is only a partial solution. Consultation without comprehensive treatment support cannot permanently solve the health challenges of pensioners. Many pensioners are asking a very simple but legitimate question: after the teleconsultation, who pays for the medicines not covered by NHIS? This question goes to the heart of the matter.

The reality is that most pensioners do not merely suffer from minor illnesses requiring occasional consultations. Pensioners battle chronic and age-related conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, neuropathy, stroke complications, prostate conditions, kidney disease, visual impairment, hearing problems, cardiovascular diseases, and other long-term ailments that require continuous treatment and expensive medications.

Unfortunately, many of these medications and treatments are either inadequately covered or completely excluded from NHIS coverage. As a result, pensioners continue to spend huge portions of their already inadequate pensions on medicines, laboratory tests, physiotherapy, specialist reviews, and transportation to health facilities. This is why many pensioners fear that the telehealth programme, though useful, may become cosmetic if it is not backed by a comprehensive medical financing framework for retirees. Technology itself is not treatment.

A video consultation cannot substitute for the inability to buy prescribed medicines. A phone call from a doctor cannot replace dialysis. Digital access cannot cure arthritis if pensioners cannot afford the drugs prescribed after the consultation. The danger is that the public may begin to believe pensioners’ healthcare challenges have been solved simply because a telehealth platform has been introduced. In reality, the core burden remains financial, not merely geographical.

Pensioners do not only need access to doctors. They need affordable treatment, subsidized medicines, geriatric care, home support systems, rehabilitation services, and continuous chronic disease management. SSNIT must therefore move beyond symbolic interventions and develop a holistic pensioners’ healthcare policy.

If SSNIT can invest contributors’ funds into hotels, estates, hostels, hospitals, financial instruments, and commercial ventures, then pensioners equally deserve a structured health protection programme that directly addresses the realities of ageing. The elderly are not asking for luxury. They are asking for dignity after decades of service to the nation.

Best practice around the world shows that countries that treat pensioners well do not stop at telemedicine. They establish dedicated elderly healthcare financing systems, subsidised prescription schemes, long-term care support, home nursing services, chronic disease management programmes, and specialised geriatric healthcare institutions.

Ghana must begin to move in that direction. SSNIT should therefore consider:

1. Establishing a dedicated Pensioners’ Medical Support Fund;
2. Subsidizing medications for chronic age-related illnesses not fully covered by NHIS;
3. Partnering regional hospitals to establish geriatric units;
4. Providing annual comprehensive medical screening for pensioners;
5. Supporting home-based care for severely aged pensioners;
6. Introducing emergency medical support schemes for indigent retirees;
7. Engaging pensioners directly before implementing programmes affecting them.

Pensioners must not merely be invited to launches. They must become active participants in policy formulation. There is also the need for honesty in public communication. The telehealth programme should not be projected as though the pensioners’ healthcare crisis has been solved. It is only one component of what should become a broader social protection framework for retirees. Half-solutions often create full frustrations. Pensioners appreciate innovation, but they also know the difference between appearance and reality. The true test of any pensioners’ healthcare programme is not the quality of the launch ceremony or media publicity. The true test is whether pensioners can actually afford the treatment required to stay alive and healthy.

As pension advocates, we are not opposing telehealth. We are asking for completeness, sustainability, and fairness. Retirement should not become a gradual journey from consultation to prescription to helplessness simply because the pensioner cannot afford the drugs prescribed. The nation owes its pensioners more than digital sympathy. It owes them practical healthcare security. “He who feels it, knows it.”

FUSEINI ABDULAI BRAIMAH
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