Dr. Da-Costa Aboagye
The Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Dr. Dacosta Aboagye, has revealed that the free dialysis services to be fully rolled out on December 1 will not only be beneficial to patients for a short period, but projected to be sustained for a period of 10 years.
The NHIA CEO, who disclosed this during a media engagement in Accra, said the projection was based on some modeling analysis of the current number of patients on dialysis.
He said the NHIA also arrived at such a conclusion based on projections from the pilot of the dialysis programme of the Authority where children below the ages of 18 and adults above the ages of 60 were given eight sessions of dialysis for free in the last six months.
According to him, its analysis showed that government will be able to provide treatment for a minimum projection of 400 patients and a maximum projection of 1,200 patients on dialysis in a year given Ghana’s population of 33 million.
He said the government is ready to provide GH¢20 to 57 million to cover the cost of the entire treatment for a maximum number of patients on dialysis per the analysis and modeling by the stakeholders in the health sector.
“We are all in agreement that it is something that we can do. We are going to implement it to the letter in such a way that our patients will benefit from this dialysis programme that we are rolling out. With this, I can confidently say that the NHIA will be able to fund dialysis in this country for many years.” he added.
He also stated that to ensure a smooth running of the programme, the Ministry of Health with the support of the World Bank has procured 30 dialysis equipment of which seven have been delivered, as it also embarks on public education to help reduce the incidence of kidney diseases and early detection of hypertension and diabetes.
Heads of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Western Regional Hospital, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and Tamale Teaching Hospital also expressed their commitment to provide all the needed support at their respective hospitals for the smooth implementation of the programme from December 1.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah