‘Let’s partner to manage critical health cases’
The Society of Private Medical and Dental Practitioners (SPMDP), Ghana, has called for public-private partnership in the management of critical cases to avert unnecessary deaths.
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It said the delays in treatment of critical cases in the various health institutions had often resulted in unnecessary deaths.
It said there were well-established private health facilities that had operating theatres that were underutilised, while public facilities remained overstretched resulting in deaths.
“There exists a public-private partnership policy that would allow for the referral of such cases to private facilities which remains unexplored,” it said.
This was contained in a communiqué issued by the society and read by its National President, Dr Isaac Charles Noble Morrison, at the end of its four-day annual general meeting held in Sunyani yesterday.
The meeting, which was on the theme: “Infant and maternal mortality and the attainment of SDGs”, was attended by delegates from the 10 regions of the country.
Infant/maternal mortality
Dilating on the theme of the meeting, Dr Morrison said with the implementation of some interventions, infant mortalities reduced from 64/1000 live births in 2003 to 41/1000 in 2014, while under five mortalities had also dropped from 111/1000 to 60/1000 within the same period.
Maternal mortality rate on the other hand dropped from 570/100,000 livebirths in 2000 to 319.5/100,000 livebirths in 2014.
Dr Morrison said even though the reduction of infant, under five and maternal mortality rates were good, the current figures remained unacceptably high because pregnancy-related deaths were often unfortunate and unnecessary.
He explained that the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) 4, 6 and 6 had established that 56 per cent of Ghanaians sought health from private medical facilities, which demonstrated the importance of the entrepreneurial efforts and the massive contributions by the private sector to support public healthcare service.
Dr Morrison, therefore, called for the enforcement of the public-private partnership policy to save unnecessary deaths.
NHIA’s internal operations
Touching on the internal operations of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Dr Morrison called for the strengthening of the authority’s internal operations and relationships with accredited private operators through improved tariffs and prompt payment of claims within the stipulated time.
That, according to him would enable the country to achieve the goals of the SDGs and maintain the steady fall in infant, under five and maternal mortality rates.
He added that the prompt payment of claims would also empower private medical and dental practitioners to improve on their quality of service and ability to employ skilled personnel and acquisition of equipment to assist in the diagnosis and management of cases.
Surrogate motherhood
Touching on childbirth, Dr Morrison said since it was the joy of every mother to bear children, science had given hope to mothers desirous of having children but were unable to do so.
He mentioned the two options available for such women as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and surrogate motherhood.
Dr Morrison questioned why some doctors, nurses and other health workers were allegedly exploiting surrogate mothers to the disdain of the medica profession.
“It is sickening to sometimes hear that health workers have allegedly ‘imprisoned’ surrogates in their homes or allegedly stolen babies,” he said.
Dr Morrison said it was time for the Ministry of Health to come out with laws regarding both surrogate motherhood and IVF to forestall the occurrence of such incidents.
For his part, the Brong Ahafo Regional Director of Health, Dr Timothy Letsa, who deputised for the Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, commended the private sector for the role it had played over the years in the gains made in the country’s healthcare service.
He called on private medical and dental practitioners to avail themselves of training programmes organised by the Ministry of Health, to help them improve upon their skills to enable them to continue the delivering of quality services to their clients.