Govt has cut off its support to the dialysis unit - Korle-Bu PRO defends increment in fees

The PRO for the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital has shared the factors that contributed to the ‘insane’ rise in the fees a kidney patient on dialysis has to pay per session.

According to the Korle-Bu PRO, Mustapha Salifu, the original GH¢380 charged by the hospital was due to the state providing some of the variables they needed for the smooth operation of the dialysis unit.

However, the government has cut off all the help it was giving to cushion the unit, hence the increase to GH¢765.42

Mustapha revealed that the dialysis unit at Korle-Bu Hospital may shut down if it continues to operate as before despite the increase in material and kit prices.

“Previously, it was down because some of the variables were being taken care of by the state and now, we have had to pay for everything ourselves and all these have factored into it. We used to have tax exemptions when we are clearing goods but now you have to pay for the import duties and other taxes that are related to it.

“So, if we want to run as we used to do previously for the next couple of weeks, then it means my brother, in the next couple of weeks of several days down the line we will have shut down the unit,” Mustapha said during an interview on JoyNews.

Mustapha Salifu, however, explained the dialysis service is far above the current fee but the hospital considered the patients and left it at GH¢765.42.

“We are not doing this to make a profit. We want to provide the service to patients. So, what we have done as I mentioned, when we did the real assessment of the cost; taking all the input that we need to buy, we need to procure to provide the service, it comes to about GH¢850. You know, we need to cushion the patients a bit that when we did the analysis, we realised we should leave it at GH¢765.42. That is something we can manage to keep the service going,” the Korle-Bu PRO stated.

The youth of Ghana descended on the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital after emerged a few days ago that the dialysis unit of the hospital had increased its fees from GH¢380 to GH¢765.42.

According to the Public Relations Officer of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, they were under threat of being shut down if the cost of dialysis was not increased, as the government is no longer providing subsidies for the service and they’ve even done their maximum best to keep it… pic.twitter.com/3jU8dkziE1

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