Malpractices In Health Care – NHIC Launches Investigations

Dr. Kwakye Maafo, a member of the National Health Insurance Council (NHIC), says the commission has begun a campaign to crack down on all health care providers who engage in practices that are not consistent with the laws of the profession. He said the Council would not hesitate to withdraw the accreditation of those who misconduct themselves or sabotage the effective implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). Dr. Maafo was addressing a stakeholders’ meeting of scheme managers, service and health care providers in the Ashanti Region, in Kumasi on Wednesday. He said his outfit had in recent times been inundated with some cases of malpractices and misconduct by some health care providers, and that those cases were being investigated. “We are looking into these issues and other pockets of fraudulent activities by some health care providers and hope to call to order those who are cited to have gone contrary to the principles under which they are supposed to work”, the NHIC member noted. These measures, he said, were part of mechanisms being put in place by the Council to address the bottlenecks hampering the effective implementation of the NHIS. Dr. Maafo urged health care providers to be abreast with Patient’s Charter, Code of Ethics and Code of Discipline as spelt out by the Ghana Health Services (GHS) to enhance efficiency in their work and also help improve interpersonal relationships between clients and providers. Mr. Abraham Dwumah Odoom, Deputy Minister of Health, said the ministry was designing, for implementation, a public education programme to raise client awareness of services offered by the different GHS facilities and the referral system. He said the Ministry was also working to ensure that about 60 per cent of outstanding treatment bills owed health care providers were paid as soon as possible.