Richard Anane Squares Off With NHIA chief

A heated argument ensued between former Minister of Health in the erstwhile Kufour administration, Dr. Richard Anane and the Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority, Mr. Sylvester Mensah over claims by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that the NHIS system has collapsed.

The flagbearer of the NPP, Nana Addo Danquah at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) evening encounter stated that “Esinam told me in Vakpo, in the Volta Region, that her problem was the collapsing National Health Insurance Scheme. She said, ‘NHIS egblen!’”

Speaking on Gold Power Drive on Thursday, Dr. Richard Anane noted that “what the Presidential candidate of the NPP said was that the scheme was collapsing. He did not say the scheme has collapsed”.

He said “one of the sudden aspects of what is happening in the Ashanti Region is that the management of capitation is poorly done. Capitation is to ensure that the NHIA will be able to project its expenditure and ensure that the provider has good cash flow on paper. The subscriber will therefore be properly treated because he will have choices to make”.

“Since the inception of the NHIS, visits to hospitals have increased by 24 folds. In-patient service has increased by 29 folds. However, there has been about 40 folds increase in expenditure. The factors that I will use to measure growth will be factors that are positively out of the three major players these are, the authority, providers and subscribers. When you see happiness between them then the scheme is doing well.”

Meanwhile the CEO of the NHIA, Mr. Sylvester Mensah expressed disappointment in the submissions and analysis of Dr. Anane.

He indicated that “with an institution managing this quantum of resources, the scheme that we inherited from the previous CEO had no audit department. There was no Human Resource department in the organization. Our internal audit for the year 2009 at the time I took over revealed that we had inadequate financial accounting and reporting systems. There was an absence of the fund management unit. There was inadequate documentation on some investments to the extent that some banks declared far less money than what we had in our book. We have injected some decency into the scheme”.

He further indicated that “I know Dr. Richard Anane is a scientist and to tell us that the measure of success and growth is happiness is rather embarrassing. I would have thought that he will talk about utilization which is a measure of public confidence in the scheme that really defines whether health insurance is working or not. If this is the kind of idea he has in measuring growth, then I am not surprised at the statement made by the flagbearer of the NPP”.