NHIS is currently in coma, gasping for liquidity breath – NDC

Sammy Gyamfi, National Communications Officer for the National Democratic Congress

The National Democratic Party (NDC) has alleged that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is currently at the verge of collapse due to the indebtedness of the scheme and mismanagement by the Akufo-Addo led government.

According to the party, the NHIS currently owes service providers in all sixteen regions claims covering a period of twelve months, a situation which has landed most health care facilities in distress.

Speaking at the third edition of the party’s Moment of Truth Series, the National communication officer, Sammy Gyamfi said;

“Akufo-Addo peddled blatant untruth when he claimed that the NHIS is “buoyant and has come back to life” the truth of the matter is that, then NHIS, very known to the president, is in deplorable state and gasping for liquidity breath. Currently, the NHIS owes service providers in all the sixteen regions of Ghana claims covering a period of almost twelve months. This has landed most health care facilities in distress”

“Our health facilities are being crippled as result of the huge indebtedness of the NHIS to service providers” The NDC also refuted claims that Akufo-Addo cleared a total of GHC1.2 Billion National Health Insurance arrears it inherited from the erstwhile Mahama government. They described the claim as “mischievous and not borne out of facts”.

Ghanaians have lost confidence on the NHIS

Sammy Gyamfi also revealed that there has been a huge decline in the active membership of the NHIS in the last two years. This he said is due to lack of confidence in the scheme.

“In 2016, NHIS had 10.786 million active membership, 2017 10.422 million and in 2018 10.410 which represents 39 per cent, 37 percent respectively of national coverage. This statistics depicts the declining confidence of Ghanaians in the National Health Insurance Scheme and exposes the dire straits that the scheme has been plunged into the Akufo-Addo government”.

He also alleged that the NHIA Fund has has declined considerably and continues to because government continues to collect more revenue in the name of NHIS.