MAB hospital appeals for NHIS reimbursement
Edward Aqcuah
Health
The MAB International Hospital at Darkuman in Accra has appealed to the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to expedite processes to reimburse the hospital for services rendered to National Health Insurance Scheme card holders.
The Deputy Medical Director of MAB Group of Companies, Professor Jacob Molai Adotey, said the hospital had not received payments for services rendered to NHIS card holders since November 2018.
He said the arrears of not less than GH¢560,000 was taking a heavy toll on its operations because the hospital solely relied on internally generated funds (IGFs) to operate.
Prof. Adotey made the appeal in an interview with the Daily Graphic at the ninth Graduation and Matriculation Ceremony of the MAB Health Training Institute (MHTI) in Accra last Saturday.
Difficult times
“We have not received payments for more than seven months. Meanwhile, the company is buying drugs for patients. So you can imagine the sort of financial constraints that we have in this exercise,” he lamented.
“About 90 per cent of our patients are NHIS card holders. This is a profession that values human life so we cannot drive away patients or refuse them when they require treatments. The hospital is, however, suffering as a result because we run on IGFs,” Prof. Adotey added.
He said “sometimes we run short of drugs because of the arrears that have not been paid, which compel us to direct patients to pharmacies outside to buy those drugs”.
He said although the hospital was not interested in turning away NHIS card holders, it may be compelled to do so in the future to save the facility from collapse.
Graduation
A total of 37 trainees, who had received two years intensive training in healthcare assistantship and 27 others, who also received training in medicine counter assistantship, graduated.
The school also admitted a total of 43 fresh trainees to the institute to pursue programmes leading to healthcare assistants or medicine counter assistants.
The graduation ceremony was christened: “Recognising the efficiency of healthcare assistants in the healthcare industry”.
Prof. Adotey underscored the need for all healthcare institutions to value the contributions of healthcare assistants and provide them with better conditions of service.
He said healthcare assistants played significant roles to complement the services of registered nurses, a contribution which, he added, should not be underestimated.
Ambassadors
The Principal of MHTI, Mrs Rose Gomashie, admonished the graduands to be ambassadors of the institute by upholding its values such as respect and service to humanity in all their endeavours.
She appealed to the committee supervising the school’s projects to speed up construction works on its new facility to enable it to expand and admit more students.
The Manager of the Tema Branch of the National Vocational Training Institute, Mr Joseph Nii Tackie, urged the graduands to explore employment avenues by using the skills they had acquired to solve societal problems.
