Startling revelations of NHIS

SHS GRADUATE DISPENSING MEDICAL SERVICE
… Offers consultancy and administers treatment
Posted: The Chronicle |Tuesday, January 05, 2010

By Charles Takyi - Boadu

Issues have started emerging over services rendered by some of the country’s health facilities for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). A report issued by the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) makes startling revelations of how a Senior High School (SHS) graduate has been dispensing treatment at a health facility in Adidome, Biodum, in the Volta Region.
It also uncovered serious cases of professional misconduct and malfeasance against health facilities whose accreditations have since been suspended. According to the findings of the report, there were no qualified staff at the time of the visit by the audit team, while the person attending to about 40 patients, was a Senior High School graduate who was consulting and giving treatment.

That notwithstanding, there were no records of attendance for most patients, and records available were written in exercise books.

Hypertensive and diabetic patients were also treated at the maternity home, while expensive medications such as Tablet Losartan were prescribed and dispensed, even though the facility has no pharmacist or dispensing technician.

The midwife was said to have offered eye services and billed the Scheme, though the facility has not been accredited for such services.

At the Hoggar Clinic, the report also revealed that some multiple attendances could not be traced to the patients’ folder. For instance, medical notes indicated single visits, whilst on the Claims forms the Scheme was billed for multiple visits.

There were also some incidences of what the report described as poly-pharmacy in about half of the Claims sampled, whilst serious discrepancies existed between diagnosis and treatment in almost 80% of the Claims sampled.

Also at the St. Paul’s Hospital in Akatsi, in the same Volta Region, the report revealed that the doctor engages the services of unqualified persons as medical staff, with the only qualified staff at the facility being a locum student nurse, and one midwife on outreach services.

A student nurse assisted surgical operations performed at the facility. For this reason, the authority could not but state that “quality of care to patients is seriously compromised.”

In spite of that, the dispensary and the laboratory had no qualified staff, with serious cases of poly-pharmacy and some multiple attendances could not be traced to patients’ folders.

The next stop of the team was the Crown Pharmacy in Ho, where prescriptions were said to have been altered, indicating that medicines that were originally not on the prescriptions from the doctor were added.

In addition, the strengths of the medicines served, were also said to have been changed to attract higher prices.

The Sefe Clinic was also said to have no medical officers.

Two other pharmacies, Truth Pharmacy at Kadjebi, and Secure pharmacy at Hohoe, were found to be providing clinical services to patients.

This has compelled the Authority to report their conduct to the Pharmacy Council for practising clinical services without a license.

Furthermore, the audits revealed some few cases of poly-pharmacy at the St. Patrick Hospital in Kpando, and the authorities have been cautioned to desist from the practice.

Certain government health facilities were equally found with some levels of professional misconduct and malfeasance, which have been reported to the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) for appropriate sanctions to be applied.

They include the Adidome Government Hospital, for billing some medications to the Scheme, which were not in the patients’ folders, and also for billing the Scheme separately with infusion sets, syringes and needles.

That notwithstanding, nurses and midwives were accused of prescribing treatments which were recorded on the medication list, whilst such treatments were not in the doctors treatment records of such patients.

At the Sogakope Government Hospital, the Authority discovered that infusions billed for at the maternity units, were neither in the nurses’ report notes nor in the patients’ folders, whilst the hospital charged separately for infusion sets.

In the case of the Peki Government Hospital, some services believed to be ‘detention for observation,’ were said to have been captured as in-patient services, and were billed as such, whilst the Anfoega Catholic Hospital has been without a qualified medical officer over a long period of time.

The NHIA has indicated its readiness to conduct a full-scale clinical audit to establish the extent of over-billing, in order to enable the Authority demand appropriate refund, and accordingly apply sanctions.

Textile coys starving batik, tie & dye industry

Posted: The Chronicle |Thu, 24 Dec 2009

By Charles Takyi - Boadu

Though the batik, tie and dye industry is gradually gaining ground on the Ghanaian market, it seems to be reeling under the shadows of the country's struggling manufacturing companies, which are competing with their foreign counterparts for market control.

Currently, most of these individuals and groups of persons who are into the making of batik, tie and dye, are having a difficult time getting easy access to the calico material (white snow) that they use in producing the tie and dye cloth.

An extensive interaction with some of these tie and dye makers, most of who are categorised as Small Scale Industries (SSI), has shown that they all face a similar problem, which has to do with access to calico.

Most of them say they sometimes have to queue for as long as between two weeks to one month in search of the material, since according to them, the local manufacturing companies cannot meet their demand.

According to most of them who spoke with The Chronicle, this is gradually affecting their businesses, since they are sometimes compelled to stay without producing for almost a month.

Even so, they noted that when the materials are ready, it sometimes depends on the links that one has within the company, before he or she may be able to get some of the calico.

One of such SSIs is the Gateway Batik, Tie and Dye Training Centre in Dzorwulu, Accra, which is managed by Charles Acquah.

In an interview with the paper, he raised the suspicion that these local textile manufacturers could be deliberately creating an artificial shortage, in order for people to patronage their cloths, instead of tie and dye, since according to him, “they realise the tie and dye industry is booming with Ghanaians showing a lot of interest in it.”

He attributed the increasing patronage of tie and dye to the national Friday wear campaign, which was initiated by the previous administration.

With time, he noted, Ghanaians have developed a likeness for the product.

Like his other colleagues, Mr. Acquah thus appealed to the government to encourage private businessmen to import calico into the country to feed their businesses, since the current situation falls way below demand.

They have also appealed to the government to assist them with loans to boost production.

However, the Deputy Trade and Industry Minister, Mr. John Gyetuah, says the Ministry was implementing the Trade Sector Support Programme (2006-2010).

According to him, the programme had been developed to set up policy directions for the trade and industrial operations in the country, under which it was developing specific policies for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

This, he said, would enable them restructure and strengthen the National Board of Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) to give adequate support to the SMEs, whilst strengthening business support institutions in Ghana to deliver SME training courses among others.

The Deputy Executive Director of the NBSSI, Dr. J. O. Amuah, says the government generally gives loans to the garment industry, but not specifically to batik, tie and dye makers.

That notwithstanding, he noted, they could still access loan facilities from the Board, that is if they are registered with it and the Registrar General as registered companies.

On his part, the Chief Executive Officer of GRATIS, Emmanuel Asiedu, said his institution gives some level of assistance to some of these SSIs, by giving them technical training at subsidised rates, which in itself serves as a boost to small scale industries.

NYEP staff set for showdown with gov`t

Posted: The Chronicle |Thursday, December 24, 2009

By Charles Takyi - Boadu

Some staffs of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) have started arriving in Accra, from the various regional capitals, to join their colleagues in the Greater Accra Region to embark on a demonstration to the seat of government, the Osu Castle. This is to back home their demand for the payment of their salaries, which have been in arrears for the past four months.

The spokesman for the group, Kwame Sefa Frimpong, and his other colleagues from the regions who spoke to The Chronicle yesterday, noted that their decision stems from the fact that several meetings with the authorities concerned, have failed to yield results.

In almost all instances that they have met coordinators of the programme, the group noted that they were only paying lip-service, by promising to pay them their salaries, only for them to renege on those promises.

They could therefore not fathom how the authorities expect them to go home with empty hands, especially in this festive season, since they equally have individual responsibilities and family commitments to meet.

For this reason, the NYEP staffs believe that marching to the Castle would make the authorities, and for that matter, the President of the Republic, know their problems and address them appropriately.

But, the National Coordinator of the NYEP and former Member of Parliament (MP) for Paga, Abuga Pele, has asked his ‘boys’ to hold their horses, and exercise a bit of restraint whilst they try to find an amicable settlement of the issue.

Whilst appreciating the concerns of the affected staff, he noted that it would be prudent for them to give the government sometime to expedite action, since it had no such intention to cause any disaffection for the staff.

He told The Chronicle that they were making efforts to pay the aggrieved staff their outstanding salary arrears.

As of yesterday, he noted that the government had succeeded in paying that of the month of September 2009 into the accounts of the staffs, and was currently working on the salaries for the month of October.

He however noted that the salaries for November and December would be paid after the Christmas break, since they were still working on it.

Meanwhile, staffs of the NYEP have called on the government to intervene otherwise they may be forced to lay down their tools. The problem of inadequate funding for the programme started under the previous administration, and its smooth running is still being impeded under the current government.

The challenge concerning inadequate and irregular flow of funds raises red flags for the programme. It is however not clear whether the programme could be sustained without government funds.