Tamale Hospitals Institute Measures To Eliminate Illegal Payments

Tamale, Dec 14, – Public hospitals in the Tamale Metropolis have instituted measures to eliminate unauthorized payments by clients to the staff at the facilities as part of efforts to improve health care delivery for all.

The facilities include Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), Tamale West Hospital and Tamale Central Hospital.

All health staff at the TTH have been issued with identity cards, which they must compulsorily wear when at post for clients to identify them when they misconduct themselves whilst at the Tamale West Hospital, all payments by clients are receipted officially.

The measures are in response to the findings of the Fighting Unapproved Charges for Health Services (FUCHASS) project implemented in the Tamale Metropolis by Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development in partnership with League of Youth Association with funding from STAR-Ghana.

As part of the project, which started in 2018, and will end by March, 2019, citizens with assistance of a community scorecard tool, assessed the performance of the hospitals and also gave their experiences on extortion and payment of unapproved fees at the hospitals.

According to the scorecard, citizens complained of making payments to health staff of the hospitals without being issued receipt, being made to go for laboratory services at private facilities at higher costs, being made to pay money before seeing their new-born babies amongst others.

Mr Iddrisu Mohammed Tamimu, a Nurse at TTH, who spoke about the measures in an interview in Tamale, said clients paid only approved charges at the bank at the hospital’s premises and be issued with receipts for treatment.

He emphasised that no staff was authorised to receive any payment on behalf of the hospital urging clients to report such staff or acts to Management for action to be taken against them.

He said staff of the facility had also been trained on customer relations to enhance their relationship with clients especially in the area of communications for improved health care delivery.

Mr. Mohammed Abdul Rashid, Health Service Administrator at the Tamale West Hospital said the facility had installed new equipment, which ensured that laboratory services were undertaken at the facility to reduce the cost of securing such services outside the facility.

They commended the FUCHASS project, which had led to the new measures eliminating corruption at the facilities while ensuring affordable and quality health care for all.

Mr. Mohammed Inusah, General Secretary of League of Youth Association urged the hospitals to maintain the gains made by intensifying their internal monitoring and customer relations systems to receive feedback from clients.

Mr. Mohammed Awal Sumani Bapio, Executive Director of CALID expressed need for the hospitals to strengthen their customer relations units to also receive complaints from clients for quick redress to ensure improved health care delivery.