Restrict NHIS Funding To Healthcare Financing – TUC To Govt

 

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called on the government to restrict funding of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to healthcare financing.

This call was contained in the Congress’ input to the 2025 Budget Statement, a practice it has maintained for the past twenty years.

In view of the challenges facing the Scheme in the area of funding, the TUC asked that “government uses the 2025 budget to reset the NHIS by ensuring that funding for the Scheme is used strictly for healthcare financing.”

The Congress, while acknowledging the various government interventions to facilitate access to                                                                                                           quality health delivery over the years, demanded “of the new government to monitor the implementation of these schemes to check possible abuses that can defeat their objectives.”

The NHIS, the Congress continued, “has become the lifeline for many of our compatriots, particularly the poor.”

The TUC noted however that, the Scheme now faces multiplicity of challenges, including delays in release of funds to the health facilities, a drawback which it observed is affecting health financing.

Ghana, the TUC disclosed, is now suffering from what is commonly described as the “double burden of diseases.”

Explaining the foregone, the Congress pointed out that “while still grappling with Communicable Diseases (CDs) – infectious and parasitic diseases, there is a significant and almost abrupt shift to Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), with cardiovascular diseases like stroke and hypertension at the forefront.”

The healthcare system, the Congress advised, “must be retooled to address the rapidly changing pattern of diseases.”

Mental health, according to the TUC, is almost completely neglected, adding “there are only three Mental Hospitals in the country, and all are in the southern belt.”

Mental healthcare, the Congress lamented, is allocated less than 2 percent of total healthcare budget, with only one psychiatrist for over 100,000 people. “We must take immediate steps to address this gap,” the TUC counseled.

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