Pharmacist and Research Fellow at the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) says the government’s plan to migrate the cost of dialysis treatment to the National Health Insurance Scheme is unviable.

Kwame Sarpong Asiedu's comment was in reaction to an earlier statement by the Public Relations Officer of the Health Ministry, Isaac Offei Baah, who had revealed that the president had directed the ministry to migrate the dialysis cost to the National Health Insurance.

Speaking on News Nite on Joy FM, Mr Baah explained that the Ministry is also exploring ways to ensure that the government can subsidize payment at the hospital for renal patients to reduce out-of-pocket expenditure.

However, commenting on the directive, Dr. Sarpong Asiedu said while he supports the move, the action under the current situation would only compound the problems in the country’s healthcare system.

He explained that with the government currently capping funds to the NHIS, the insurance scheme does not have the bandwidth to take on the cost of dialysis treatment.

“It is dangerous because when you have a health insurance scheme, it has to invest some of its inflows for rainy days and unexpected events like where the president has not given a fiat that they should add renal dialysis.

“They haven’t invested the money because the money has sat with the central government because the government decided to pass a law that bypasses the National Health Insurance Act.

“So when you go further to tell them that they should take on dialysis, and already anyone who is a practitioner knows that the NHIS is in arrears to service providers, you’re going to not only compound the dialysis problem, but you’re also going to compound the arrears that are owed to service providers because already with this money you cannot pay,” he explained.

The accumulated debt the directive would impose on the NHIS, he said, could eventually lead to essential service providers backing out of the scheme.

“For the service providers, some of them might back out and say that they’re not going to provide service for the NHIS.

“But more importantly, those who are on life and death situations like what Dr. Titus Beyuo was saying might end up passing away because they will get to the hospital but like Dr. Beyuo said something that has to be free, you get to the hospital and you have to pay, everyone knows that, it is not something you should run away from,” he said.

He reiterated calls for government to put in place a robust financial structure for the NHIS by uncapping the funds to the scheme.

He said failure to do so could spell doom for Ghana’s health service.

“So if such ad hoc decisions are not backed by the data, not backed by the lack of physical space in our health budget but are done in my view strictly on a populist hunch – and I’m being blunt about it being a populist hunch because Kojo if it’s not populism, Dr. Nsiah Asare sat on a programme and said that the money was going to be paid, nothing happened.

“The ministry of health gave a directive, Korle Bu turned around and said they hadn’t received the directive, nothing happened. The minister of state said the same thing that it was going to be paid last weekend, nothing happened.

“And suddenly we get this letter which says the fundamental health problem hasn’t been solved so the only reason is you guys journalist are bashing the government too much, we cannot take the heat no more, so you Korle Bu open up.

“The chief executive who is appointed by the government who knows that the president can wake up in the morning and say that you’ve lost your job has no choice than to open up. Is that how to run a health system? And for me these are the critical conversations we need to have,” he added.