Health workers call for new policy on health insurance

Sandema (U/E), Sept 8, GNA - Ghana Health Service (GHS) staff in the

Builsa District have suggested to the National Health Insurance Authority to

assign every subscriber of the scheme to one health facility to receive

healthcare. They said at a workshop held for them at Sandema that the current

system under which subscribers could visit any facility of their choice

brought in its wake duplication, thereby increasing cost to the scheme. The staff said this posed danger to subscribers' health as they visited

multiple health facilities for drugs even when they were receiving treatment from other facilities. The participants argued that there were high tendencies of patients abusing their systems with several drugs they received from these facilities. The workshop was organized by the Upper East Regional Directorate of

the GHS for its staff throughout the region to remind them of the need to give special attention to their clients. Mr. Gaston Bozie, Regional Health Promoter at the Regional Health

Directorate, said it had become necessary to organize such programmes to sensitize staff of the service in the face of stiff competition in health care

delivery in the region. He said the idea was also to get health staff to understand the modalities in customer care so that they could add more innovative skills in dealing with

patients.

The Upper East Regional Directorate of the GHS is embarking on a regional campaign to sensitize its staff in order to attract and keep more patients at its facilities. This has been necessitated by recent decline in patient attendance at some key public health facilities in the region following recent upsurge of private health facilities.

The decline has partly been attributed to the lack of customer care skills by health providers from the GHS and this has affected service delivery and trust from the public who considered public health facilities as their first

choice in seeking medical care.