Akwatia St Dominic Hospital in financial stress

The non-payment of National health Insurance Scheme claims has left the St Dominic Hospital at Akwatia in the Eastern Region in a serious financial mess.

The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is indebted to the hospital to the tune of GHc3,913,101.88 being arrears for 2015 and 2016.

Authorities are considering reverting to cash-and-carry system and also laying off some staff on its internally-generated funds.

Claims
The acting Administrator of the hospital, Rev. Sister Celestine Dovlo told the Daily Graphic in an interview that the NHIA had broken its own 90-day payment of claims rule.

She explained that out of the Gh¢4,137,153.62 claims submitted to the NHIA for 2015, the hospital was paid Gh¢3,722,114.70 with an outstanding balance of Gh¢413,715.36.

For 2016, she said, out of the Gh¢4,493,158.27 claims raised for refund, only three months (February, March and April) claims totalling Gh¢993,771.75, had been paid with the remaining nine months balance of Gh¢3,499,386.52 yet to be paid.

Dire situation
Rev Sister Dovlo described the situation as very disturbing since it had affected some services at the hospital.

According to her, there were no drugs at the pharmacy nor essential hypertensive medicines.

She said the Out Patient Department attendance had dropped drastically from 500 patients daily to an average of 200.

The Financial Controller of the Hospital, Rev Father Paul Amankwah said the hospital had not been able to settle its indebtedness to its suppliers, adding that 74 of the suppliers had claims at the offices yet to be redeemed.

He said the lack of cash had resulted in the management not being able to address transportation challenges of the hospital, replacement of defective equipment.

He appealed to the Health Minister to do away with nepotism and distribute fairly the resources equitably so that those in the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG).