Cape Coast Metro Hospital to suspend meals to patients

The Administrator of Cape Coast Metropolitan Hospital on Wednesday said any further delay in re-imbursing the Hospital by National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL) could result in the facility discontinuing provision of meals to patients.

Mr David Kwame Foli, said already the hospital is compelled to provide patients with two meals a day instead of the three meals due to the delay in the re-imbursement of the NHIL.

Mr Foli was reacting to Ghana News Agency’s (GNA) story, which claimed patients at the hospital are being given non-nutritional meals.

He noted that the NHIL pays GH?2.30 per day for each patient’s meals, which he described as woefully inadequate, “yet the money is not forth coming”, he added.

The medical facility had since February this year not received the NHIL re-imbursement.

Mr Foli hinted that about 80-85 per cent of the patients are on National Health Insurance Scheme.

He said the amount generated from fee-paying patients, is inadequate to run services.

He therefore appealed to National Health Insurance Authority to re-imburse the hospital to facilitate the delivery of quality services.

Another major concern that Mr Foli raised was that the hospital had not received any protective equipment to combat the deadly Ebola viral disease outbreak which had killed about 4500 people mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and posed a threat to the West African sub-region.

He said he was however elated that the cholera cases being reported to the facility have reduced considerably over the last few weeks, urging the public to observe good sanitation practices to check the spread of the disease. Other challenge the hospital is facing is the high cost of fuel it purchases to run its electricity generator due to the frequent power outages.

He said the sea-breeze is also having a serious toll on equipment at the facility.

He stated that the hospital spent about GH?1,500.00 on fuel every day to power its generator.

The Catering Officer of the Hospital, Madam Francisca Araba Appah told GNA that she is compelled to buy food items on credit to cook for patients, due to lack of funds.

She called on government and Ghana Health Service to help rectify the situation as soon as possible.