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Develop
cost-containment measures for universal insurance scheme -
Veep
Accra, March 10, Ghanadot/GNA - Vice
President John Dramani Mahama on Tuesday tasked health
authorities to come up with "cost-containment" measures that
would lead to a speedy implementation of a universal health
insurance scheme to help bridge the inequality gap in health
care between the rich and the poor in Ghana.
Vice President Mahama said government was determined to work
towards the realization of a one-off health care scheme.
"Our national health insurance scheme should be based on our
core values as a nation, the values of a health system
funded by all of us and available to each of us, equally,
free at the point of treatment, with care based on our need
and not our ability to pay," he added.
Vice President Mahama, who was speaking at the inauguration
of African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA)
in Accra, also asked health planners to work towards
policies that would ensure "proper balance in the financing
of health care to ensure the sustainability of quality
services, especially more marginalised groups”.
The Association, which is an amalgamation of health experts
in economics, financing and policy development, seeks to use
their union as a platform to help improve the performance of
public health systems in Africa.
The Association would also be an interface between health
researchers and policy makers and how the two fields can
dialogue to improve health practices on the continent.
Vice President Mahama hailed the formation of the
association as it could help scale up improvement in health
outcomes on the continent.
This fact, he said, was predicated on the idea that Africa's
overall wealth that had as its basis the use of health as a
"productive force" to help drive the economy.
Mr. Mahama noted that the demands for the increase in health
care coverage to meet the equity objectives for improvements
in the quality of health care and the pressure to meet the
MDGs required additional resources.
He called for urgent efforts to make optimal use of
available resources through cost-containment and efficient
resources management.
To ensure the sustainability of the one-off payment, Vice
President Mahama called on economists, planners, policy
analysts and managers working in the health sector to guide
the country to the challenge of finding a proper balance in
financing health.
He urged the Association to use the platform to promote the
use of health economies in policy development, planning and
management of health programmes on the African continent.
Dr George Sipa Yankey, Minister of Health, said the survival
and sustainability of the Health Insurance required robust
knowledge and skills in the health economics.
"As health economists, you stand very tall when it comes to
conducting economic analysis as well as to calculate the
cost effectiveness and efficiency of health interventions."
Dr Chris Atim, Chairman of the Planning Committee of AfHEA,
said the proposal to set up an AfHEA was as a result of the
realisation that "as an input into health sector policy
making in Africa, the potential of health economies as an
aid to decision making is often not fully appreciated or
exploited, and is in some cases practically non-existent".
GNA
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