The Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) has announced it is suspending medical services to National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cardholders starting from Monday. The group says the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has consistently failed to pay outstanding claims to health service providers under the Association. A communique stating this and intercepted by Nhyira FM indicates that the NHIA owes - 183 health facilities nationwide operating under the CHAG - more than 50 million Ghana cedis as of the end of January 2013. The group which acts on behalf of 19 churches which operate health facilities and caters for about 42 percent of the total health care needs of Ghanaians says its hospitals cannot continue to render services which are not paid for. All missionary hospitals nationwide will, therefore, not provide health services to patients under the NHIS if the Association carries through the action. The communiqué accused the NHIA of failing to pay legitimate claims submitted by the hospitals. The development it said has put the facilities under undue financial strain. The statement said CHAG hospital managers were struggling to pay the salaries of their staff members as well as for medical supplies - a situation it says is frustrating. CHAG said it will reconsider its decision to suspend services to NHIS cardholders only when outstanding claims are paid in full. “The churches have decided that this is not a tenable situation. It is not in the interest of the people at large. "At the end of the day, we have outstanding debt, institutions are taking bank overdrafts; we cannot buy drugs, we cannot buy other inputs and even if they pay us all that money today, we will still have an outstanding debt because the tariff structure does not meet the actual cost. "And in the interest of the public, we will have to revert to cash and carry,” Executive Director of CHAG, Dr. Gilbert Buckle lamented. Dr. Buckle has acknowledged the impact of the action on public health, but says the Association has no option than to suspend its services. The NHIA is however yet to respond to the concerns of the Association as they schedule a crunch meeting for Friday to deliberate on the issue.