Add contraceptives to NHIS - Dr Offei-Aboagye

Dr Esther Offei-Abogye, Executive Director, Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS), has called on government to consider the provision of contraceptives unto the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
     
This, she said, would allow many more women to gain access to quality reproductive healthcare across the country and help end the occasional shortage of contraceptives in the country.
     
Dr Offei-Aboagye, who was speaking during opening of the annual forum organised by the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health, also called for more education and information on the use of contraceptives in the country.
     
She said “many women still lacked access to contraception services they required- both in the area of information, as well as the products”.
     
Dr Offei-Aboagye cited the inclusion of family planning services in the NHIS and the Essential Medicine List and the allocation of an explicit budget line for contraceptive in the national budget as one of the key advocacy issue of Civil Society.
     
She lauded government for the introduction of the Community –Based Health Planning Services (CHPS) concept which had helped in the provision of improved healthcare to people in rural areas saying “although the CHPS had helped a great deal, a number of districts and localities lack functioning CHPS facilities and infrastructural constraints”.
     
She called for an effective partnership between district assemblies and district health management teams for the effective functioning of CHPS compounds as well as other aspects of health delivery at the local level.
     
Dr Offei-Aboagye expressed concern about the phenomenon of self-medication which come about due to one’s inability to pay for orthodox drugs, people’s perception about orthodox drugs and their effects and the bad attitude of some healthcare givers.
     
She urged government to heed to the call of NGOs for greater collaboration in their quest to serve the public better and urged civil societies and NGOs to be trustworthy and be committed to full disclosures of their activities in order to earn the trust and respect of all especially their from their donors.
     
Dr Offei-Aboagye said the reluctance of some NGOs to work together and not duplicate efforts, weak internal structures of some NGOs and CSOs, the dilemma of sourcing foreign funding and inconsistencies in their advocacy efforts as some of the challenges that had plagued the NGO front.
     
Dr Maureen Martey, Head Private Sector Unit, Ministry of Health, cited the establishment of the Health Facility Regulatory Authority, the Mental Health Authority the Ambulance Authority as some government’s interventions towards improved healthcare.
     
She said since 2010, the NHIS had ran at a loss which had compelled the National Health Insurance Authority to consider strategies to increase revenue and contain cost of the scheme.
     
“A consolidated Premium Account has been established where premiums collected by the scheme are properly accounted for,” she said, adding that rising maternal mortality rate, inadequate infrastructure, poor human resource, and poor client satisfaction were some of the challenges plaguing the quality health delivery in the country.
     
Mr Kenneth Wujangi, Chairman, Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health, said the forum would offer participants the opportunity to come out modalities on how to improve n healthcare delivery in the county.
     
He expressed concern about the strike action by doctors at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, which had resulted in several death cases and pledged the commitment of the coalition to continue to work as watchdogs in the provision of good healthcare in the country.