The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare, has hinted of moves towards comprehensive health financing.

He said the Health Ministry (MOH) would soon come out with policy initiatives – short, medium and long-term -- to address issues of health care financing in the country.

Speaking at a meeting with Methodist Health Professionals in Kumasi, he said there was going to be cost containment measures to improve the efficiency of the health insurance scheme.

Dr. Nsiah Asare indicated that the Ministry, together with its agencies including the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), were eager to tackle the funding challenges of the scheme.

The scheme has over the years been struggling to pay claims submitted by health care service providers, resulting in high indebtedness to the health facilities.

It has recently begun paying some of the outstanding claims.

The service providers - public, private and mission health facilities -- have been loudly complaining that the delay in the reimbursement is crippling the operations.

The situation has forced some of them to resort to co-payment for medical care, others have totally stopped accepting NHIS subscription in their facilities.

Dr. Nsiah underlined the government’s determination to ensure that the people had access to quality, affordable and reliable healthcare.

He applauded the role and contribution of mission hospitals in health care delivery and said the government would continue to strengthen its partnership with them to bring quality health care to everybody.