Private healthcare providers need support
It is the primary responsibility of any government to ensure that its citizens have geographical and financial access to quality health care through the establishment of curative and preventive health services.
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However, the fact that there is unavailability of public health facilities in many parts of the country shows that the government is not able to do this all alone. This is where the private health provider comes in.
It goes without saying that without private sector involvement, our public health facilities will be choked with patients and a lot of patients may find it difficult accessing health care. Thus the role of the private health provider is to bridge the gap and augment the efforts of the government, aimed at bringing quality health care closer to the doorstep of the people. This must be seen in the light of public-private collaboration and not public-private competition.
Problem
There is generally a lack of support from the government to individual private healthcare providers who provide services to a great number of the population. This means that these providers would have to generate their own revenue to finance all their activities ranging from staff salaries to the purchase of needles and syringes. This obviously will make their charges more expensive, thus reducing their financial accessibility to a lot of patients.
Private health facilities which are hooked onto the national health insurance scheme (NHIS) soon learn that about 90 per cent of their clients are NHIS card holders and any delay in reimbursement means they will run out of funds needed to finance their activities, especially the payment of monthly salaries.
When individuals or groups donate to health facilities, it is usually to the public or big health facilities and “the small ones” are often left out. We forget that it is these small facilities which feed the big ones with patients by way of referral and which are also in closer contact with the population.
Solution
The government must have a comprehensive programme to support private health providers on a regular basis, especially in the area of supply of logistics and equipment, as well as capacity building.
For private health facilities which are NHIS accredited, the government can set up a separate reimbursement scheme for them to ensure that they are paid promptly as they need money to pay staff salaries at the end of the month.
National service personnel can also be posted to the small clinics and hospitals to help boost staff strength. In the past, personnel from the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), were sent to a number of these clinics and this helped to strengthen the performance of a lot of facilities.
Benefits
The government stands to benefit immensely if private facilities are supported. It can bring their charges down and improve quality of care. Patients will not wait too long to financially access nearby health facilities. The public health facilities will be decongested.
When services become affordable, people will go for regular check-ups and most diseases will be prevented. Less money will be spent on treating diseases and people will enjoy good health to carry on with their daily activities.
The health status of the citizens will improve and this will ultimately lead to wealth creation both on the part of the government and the citizens.
At the moment, privately trained personnel, including nurses, find it difficult getting employment in the public sector and a lot are employed by the private health providers. When strengthened, they will be able to absorb more of this category of staff thereby, reducing the unemployment rate in this group.
Private health training institutions must also adopt and indeed support the private health care providers so that upon completion of their training their graduates can have places to work.
It appears that government gives employment priority to students who are trained in government training institutions.
The writer is a Medical Director, Royal Medical Agency and Clinic.
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