‘37 Military Hospital not rejecting NHIS card bearers’
The 37 Military Hospital has denied allegations that the hospital is rejecting National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card bearers who visit the hospital.
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Recent social and traditional media reports have indicated that the management of the hospital is considering an arrangement under which the NHIS will cover half the bills of a subscriber, while the subscriber bears the rest.
A notice said to have been posted at the hospital and circulated on social media said, “With effect from Monday, 18th April, 2016, NHIS will pay part of your bill and the rest will be paid by the individual.”
The notice, which went viral on social media, particularly Whatsapp, did not bear any signature or name of the person or department which issued it.
According to the hospital, it was not true that it was not accepting NHIS cards.
To establish the veracity or otherwise of the report, officials of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) paid a visit to the hospital yesterday.
Visit to hospital
During the visit, it was noticed that patients with the NHIS were being attended to at the various units. Workers at the NHIS Unit at the hospital were also seen actively working as patients trooped in and out.
At the Outpatients Department (OPD), most of the patients attested to the fact that they had visited the hospital with the NHIS cards and had been taken care of.
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Some of the NHIS cards that had been photocopied for the day for validation were shown to the media.
Briefing the media during the visit, the Director of the Public Relations Department of the Ghana Armed Forces, Col Eric Aggrey-Quarshie, explained that the management of the hospital did not know the source of the notice and how it was circulated.
What was more, the notice was invalid because it was not on a GAF letterhead and not signed by either the Commander or Commanding Officer of the hospital, he added.
AG report
According to Col Aggrey-Quarshie, an Auditor General’s report on the hospital suggested that the amount of money paid by the NHIA for the services rendered by the hospital was inadequate.
Therefore, it suggested to the hospital to find ways to recover the loss.
Subsequently, he said, at a meeting, suggestions were made and probably someone might have misunderstood the communication and posted the notice that NHIS subscribers must bear half of their bills.
Tariff adjustment
He disclosed that the NHIA had hinted at a meeting that it had revised its tariffs upwards, a situation which, he said, might help resolve the shortages.
He asked the public not to be alarmed by the circulation of the notice but visit the hospital whenever the need be with their NHIS cards.
For his part, the Deputy Director of Communications at the NHIA, Mr Selorm Adonoo, said subscribers should not be deterred by the false notice, as there was no cause for the hospital to stop taking NHIS cards, especially when it was a public facility.