GMA Awards Night

Story: Henrietta Brocke
THE Ghana Medical Association (GMA) says the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is collapsing due to outstanding insurance claims owed to service providers.
It said many health facilities had been crippled by outstanding insurance claims owed them by the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA).
The President of the association, Dr Emmanuel Adom Winful expressed the sentiments of the GMA on the NHIS at the awards and press soiree in Accra on Saturday.
A number of individuals and organisations were honoured for their contributions to health delivery in the country, including the Graphic Communications Group, which received three awards.
The Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Ransford Tetteh and the Daily Graphic health correspondent, Ms Lucy Adomah Yeboah, received special honours for their special attention to health matters. The Graphic Communication Group Limited was also honoured for its contribution to health education.
Dr Winful said the legislative instrument of the NHIS enjoined the insurance authority to reimburse service providers within four weeks of submitting their claims.
“The seven months of outstanding claims facing some facilities is seriously impairing health care delivery in various parts of the country,” Dr Winful said.
He said the huge outstanding claims had led to the situation where some health facilities, which were the only ones in their districts, had voluntarily withdrawn from the scheme.
In view of the situation, he said, the GMA had decided to create a platform at its upcoming public lectures in August for a dispassionate analysis of the challenges of the NHIS and how best those challenges could be resolved to make the NHIS the envy of the world.
He said the NHIA needed to continue with its clinical audits but that ought to be done within the time prescribed by law.
He also addressed recent cases of alleged medical negligence and called on the media to go beyond mere reportage, which often did not last beyond a week, and collaborate with the GMA to critically examine innovative ways of putting the microscope on the health system.
He said it was time journalists and doctors saw each other as partners in a common cause of bringing health and prosperity to the public.