The Bono Regional Director of the Ghana Health Services (GHS), Dr Kofi Amo-Kodieh, has urged the government to decouple proceeds of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) from the Consolidated Fund.

He noted that channeling proceeds of the Scheme to the Consolidated Fund denies the health facilities the ability to perform their core duties and the means to provide timely and adequate healthcare.

Dr Amo-Kodieh said the successes of the Bono Region could have been more if the NHIS, which is the only insurance that sustains the health facilities and the means through which Ghana hopes to achieve universal coverage in 2030, has not become a challenge.

“We urge the government to decouple the health insurance from the general national purse as was done at the onset of the National Health Insurance Scheme,” he said.

“This we know will allow the health insurance to perform its fundamental duty of reimbursing services rendered by the (health) facilities timely and adequately,” he added.

He made these assertions at the 2022 Bono Regional health Annual Performance Review meeting in Sunyani.

The two-day review was on the theme, "Increasing access to responsive clinical and public health emergencies, through the implementation of the network of practice concept."

The Region's overall performance for the year was 4.0 out of 5.0 after the holistic assessment.

However, it was observed that the Region is stagnating compared to the 2021 overall regional performance of 4.01.

The assessors concluded that the directorate needs to put in more effort to sustain the gains in the reduction of avoidable maternal mortality, morbidity, and disability, and improve universal access to better health services through engagement and collaborations with stakeholders and partners.

The Regional Health Director, Dr Amo-Kodieh, revealed that the institutional maternal mortality ratio reduced from 84 per 100,000 live births to 75 per 100,000 live births due to the audit recommendations done on all maternal deaths and the tragic implementation package training held in the Region.

He revealed that the Region topped the national optic performance, with the regional and the municipal hospitals in Sunyani adjudged as the first and second respectively, at the regional and district levels.

Deputy Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Anthony Adofo Ofosu, expressed worry over the continuous loss of skilled staff, who leave for greener pastures, and also the poor uptake of postings when staff is posted to less endowed areas.

He attributed the refusal by staff to accept postings to some communities to the lack of accommodation and schools for their children. He added that, “all these do not lie in our purview as the health sector, but they are important for the deployment of staff to a lot of the deprived areas.”

Dr Adofo Ofosu used the occasion to appeal to stakeholders, including regional ministers, district chief executives, members of parliament, traditional leaders, the clergy, and all of society “to come together to help us address the social, environmental, and the economic determinants of health so that any gains that we make from health service delivery shall be meaningful and sustainable,”

He also appealed to mothers to take advantage of the availability of vaccines to vaccinate their children against childhood vaccine-preventable diseases with the hope that supply would be available throughout the year.