Foreign Researchers in the health sector have called on government to help the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) build capacity to help in the growth of the scheme.
According to the researchers, Ghana has made strides in the implementation of the scheme but still needs to improve as it takes charge of its health sector.
They mentioned this at a forum held to discuss the findings of a feasibility study conducted between September and November last year.
A Researcher and a Senior Programs Officer at Pharma-Access in Netherlands, Christine Fenenga stated that there is a need for capacity building.
“In general, there is a basic knowledge but you will feel specially also for example in administration and IT [Information Technology] issues but also in some other issues, it’s important to build capacity.”
She called on countries that are a little bit more upfront already in capacity building “can also help other countries so that there is an exchange of knowledge and information so we should build on the capacity and also try to further develop this capacity.”
A Research Scientist from the Ugandan Ministry of Health, Dr. Robert Basaza also suggested that Ghana needs to build capacity and know “what to do in the scheme so that we are able to expand and manage properly our health insurance.”
He noted that the biggest challenge of managing health insurance is that “the practitioners are not knowledgeable enough to create a sustainable change, a sustainable operation of health insurance.”