It Will Be A Disgrace If NHIS Collapses - Kyeremanten Agyarko

The Ghana Chamber of Pharmacy has threatened to suspend supplies of medicines to hospitals under the National Health Insurance Scheme. The Chamber indicated that they will no longer supply medicines to these hospitals and service providers because of the strangling arrears owed them by the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA). Hon. Emmanuel Kyeremanten Agyarko, Member of Parliament (MP) for Ayawaso West Wougon speaking to the issue has attributed the non-payment of the money to bad governance. He told Kwami Sefa Kayi on �Kokrokoo� that the NHIS will not be facing such difficulties had the Mahama-led administration directed money to the �right quarters�. ��and all this is because of bad governance. Government is not putting in the money supposed to be injected into the scheme. 50% of the money that was supposed to be paid to them (Ghana Chamber of Pharmacy) were diverted�this is factual. If they had not used the money to pay for Guinea fowls, judgement debt, GYEEDA and so on, they would have been able to pay the arrears owed the Chamber.� The Hon MP added that �it will be a disgrace if this scheme (NHIS) collapses. However, in a quick response, Bernard Anim Piesie, a member of the Communication team of the National Democratic Congress strongly disagrees. It is not true that the money have been diverted; Government does not yet have the money, he said. Bernard was confident that �the scheme will not collapse; it is just facing challenges. People should stop criticizing and trying to score cheap political points. They should rather help government in solving the issues�. Meanwhile, the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) says it has released Gh�104 million to service providers, covering claims for the months of August and September, 2013. Selorm Adonoo, Communications Manager of the NHIA disclosed Monday on Joy FM, that the authority will settle the remaining claims to service providers as soon as the Ministry of Health releases the funds.