Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has expressed optimism that the National Health Insurance Scheme, which he argues is collapsing, will pick up under the right administration.
According to him, the Mahama-led administration “didn’t share in the vision so there has been a slump in the implementation of the programme.”
In some cases service providers have threatened to return to the days where health care service will only be delivered after patients have paid for the services.
But the former president Kufuor said he was hopeful that things might improve when the New Patriotic Party comes to power and redirects the focus of the scheme.
“The NHIS is still tottering around; we hope it will gather steam under the right leadership because it has come to stay and hopefully Ghanaians will see the difference,” Mr Kufuor told GH One TV Friday.
Meanwhile, Vice President, Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur has said that government is no more in a position to continuously finance the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) as its budget is seriously constrained.
“Government budget is seriously constrained and therefore the easy option for saying that allocate some more money to the NHIS is no longer available to us therefore we must innovate. We seriously need to think about other ways of providing financing so that we can increase the coverage of the National health insurance scheme,” he said.
The Vice President made this known at the first major review of the National Health Insurance Scheme in June, 2016.