By Linda Naa Deide Aryeetey& Nora Asare
Accra, Jan. 27, GNA – Some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in health have called on the government to pay attention to external factors influencing people’s health and healthcare delivery in the country.
These include road safety issues, the impact of road crashes on victims, communities, families, and health facilities.
They said government must also ensure a meaningful engagement between the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the public to provide adequate and timely information to patients.
The CSOs advocated for this at a forum on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) organised by the Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights in Accra on Thursday.
They also called for increased political will, commitment, and funding of health interventions.
Mr Abass Sulemana, Senior Operations Manager, National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), said the authority would this year increase access to clinical and public health emergencies.
He said the NHIA would ensure that 100 per cent of the public was covered under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) by 2030 with an expansion of its range of service provision.
He said the NHIA had developed an essential healthcare package, which had been approved by the MOH and would be launched this year.
The package, he said, would ensure the provision of preventive, palliative, curative, and emergency care to public health emergencies as well as mental health care.
“In addition to the essential healthcare package, we are going to provide infirmaries at marketplaces, schools and workplaces in order to bring healthcare closer to the people,” he added.
Mr Archibald Adams, a spokesperson for the CSOs in health, said the COVID-19 pandemic had presented Ghana with the opportunities to attain UHC.
He said UCH could be attained by strengthening health systems for public health emergencies and by investing more in health infrastructure.
UHC is access to timely healthcare and quality health services irrespective of ability to pay at the point of use.
The goal of the UHC is to increase access to quality essential health care and population-based services for all by 2030 .
GNA