The Ghana Physician Assistants Association has described the directive from the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to withhold the credentialing of private health centers manned by Physician Assistants as discriminatory and unfair.
According to the association, the directive, which will prevent Physician Assistants from going into private practice can consequently worsen the healthcare sector in Ghana. This is due to the already overburdened yet under-resourced public health sector in the country.
“In addition, the above directive will affect masses of the population who seek healthcare at the peripheries of this nation as a result of lack of well-resourced public health facilities, and will go long way to impact negatively on Ghana’s strides to attaining Universal Health Coverage through National Health Insurance Scheme which is a strategy of making financial accessibility to health less costly to the poor majority”.
Registering their displeasure in a press release today, signed by the Association’s president, Emmanuel Yaw Appiah, and copied to ghananewsonline.com.gh, they noted that
“The National Health Insurance Authority has been unfair to Physician Assistants for far too long. Mention can be made of Levels of Care outlined by the Authority where the Physician Assistant was conveniently omitted from the B1 level (Health centre without doctor”
The association added that, the government of Ghana should rather make the private sector attractive to healthcare professionals considering “its inability to employ [all of] them into the public sector”.
The association therefore called on the “ National Health Insurance Authority through its Chief Executive Officer to withdraw such a circular as a matter of urgency within two (2) weeks while broader stakeholder meetings is scheduled to address issues leading to the directive” . They pleaded with the President of the country and the Minister of Health to step in immediately to forestal any industrial action.
Source: Jonas Danquah || ghananewsonline.com.gh