Subscribers of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) will have to buy their own drugs effective Monday if the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) fails to pay supplies of drugs to hospitals operating NHIS.
This is because the Ghana Chamber of Pharmacy (GCP), distributors of drugs, has threatened to suspend the supply of medicines to hospitals under NHIS across the country effective February 10.
Mr Stanley Adjei, Head of Research & Advocacy at GCP, told The Finder that the decision follows the failure on the part of the service providers under the NHIS to reimburse the distributors for medicines supplied.
According to him, whereas some of the hospitals are in arrears since July 2013, others are in arrears since May 2013.
He explained that the inordinate delay in the reimbursement by the NHIA is impacting negatively on the financial strength as well as the survival of the distributors.
�Our members have resorted to borrowing from the banks at 30% interest rates and sometimes from microfinance institutions at interest rate of 5% per month in order to bridge the funding gap and sustain supplies to the hospitals,� he said.
Mr Adjei noted that the cedi has suffered intense depreciation against the major international trading currencies since the last half of 2013; therefore critical funds locked up in debt in the hospitals since the last half of 2013 means all their profits are being wiped out, threatening their very existence.
In effect, he said, the distributors are funding the health insurance scheme at a great cost to them.
�Under the current financial difficulty, members cannot meet their financial obligations to their banks and suppliers. The situation is also hurting the otherwise healthy business relationship with their suppliers, bankers and other partners,� he said.
He explained that it was on account of this difficulty, resulting from non-payment of drugs supplied, that GCP was suspending further drug supplies to health service providers under the NHIS effective February 10, 2014, subject to full payment of all outstanding indebtedness to members.
<<Print>>