Reduce Inefficiency and Waste in NHIS

July 6, 2009
HE Minister of Health, Dr George Yankey, has stated that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) will be sustainable if inefficiency and wastes are reduced by prescribers of medicines.
“For our growing National Health Insurance Scheme, it is cost containment toll to ensure that inefficiency and wastes are reduced to make the scheme sustainable,” he stressed.
The Health Minister explained that inappropriate prescription of medicines was one of the manifestations of irrational use of medicines, which occurred when medicines were not prescribed in accordance with guidelines based on scientific evidence to ensure safe, effective, and economic use.
He was delivering a speech at a stakeholders’ dissemination workshop on the review of the 2004 standard treatment guidelines and essential medicines list in Accra.
The meeting was to offer an opportunity for experts who worked on the review of the draft standard treatment guidelines and essential medicines list to brainstorm on issues in a transparent manner.
Dr Yankey said health systems, particularly in developing countries were faced with growing health needs on one hand and limited resources on the other and, therefore, called on policy makers at various levels to engage in developing cost-effective health interventions to ensure accessible and affordable quality care to benefit all, especially the poor and vulnerable.
In his address, the Director of Pharmaceutical Services and Chief Pharmacist of the Ministry of Health (MoH), Mr James Ohemeng Kyei, said the importance of the standard treatment guidelines was to assist and guide prescribers and dispensers in providing the best possible quality care to patients.
He explained that with the guidelines, any particular health problem would be provided the same treatment irrespective of social status, creed, ethnicity and geographical location of the patient.
Mr Kyei gave the assurance that the completion of the documents would serve as a powerful catalyst to enable the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to complete a review of the NHIA medicine list, which “is also long overdue”.
The First Secretary, Health and Gender, of the Royal Netherlands Embassy, Dr M. de-Jong, expressed the hope that the MoH, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) and the NHIA would succeed in resolving the issues of delayed reimbursements, payments and debt accumulation in the supply lines of the essential drugs and other supplies.
He also expressed hope that the revision of the document would be completed in time for distribution and use in all health facilities.
He touched on the numerous support the Netherlands Embassy had been giving to the Ghana National Drug Programme, adding that is was because of the importance of essential drugs in health care.