Health authorities in Kumasi have warned of deteriorating quality of health care for residents due to the continued boycott of health insurance capitation by private providers. The Ghana Health Service Metropolitan Directorate says there is increasing and unbearable pressure on public facilities. Metro Health Director, Dr. Akwasi Yeboah-Awudzie wants the National Health Insurance Authority to suspend for review, the capitation being piloted in the Ashanti region since the beginning of the year. The controversial NHIS capitation, according to health authorities in Kumasi, is adversely affecting healthcare delivery. Many private facilities have opted out of the scheme over what they say are inadequate service fees. Dr. Yeboah-Awudzie told Luv News that public health facilities are unable to cope with the huge number of patients, compounded by acute lack of funds. “For instance in Kumasi, there are about 180 private facilities, so if the private people decide that they are not doing insurance, then it means that the health system is in danger”, he said. He says even the few private facilities that claim to be part of capitation is doing co-payment underground and charging patients for some services supposed to be free. Dr. Yeboah-Awudzi says government health facilities are bearing the brunt of capitation because they are receiving higher than anticipated numbers. For example the regional hospital received GHS12,000 in January; with the numbers they treated they would have received 86,100 under the previous scheme. This has resulted in acute lack of funds and poor service delivery. Dr. Yeboah-Awudzie is particularly worried the NHIA has not set a timeline for the piloting of capitation. He believes three months of implementation is enough time to suspend and review the system. “The truth is that three months is enough, the good things about capitation we can see, the bad things we can see, lets analyze it and then if it’s good, then we spread it for the whole nation. If it is not good then we stop it and go back to the old one, otherwise Kumasi is being cheated.” Meanwhile, maternal mortality in the Kumasi Metropolis has increased by 137 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to 2011. Thirty-eight women lost their lives, 22 more than the 16 who died in between January and March last year. The Metropolitan Health Directorate partly attributed the rise to underdeveloped peripheral hospitals. Many healthcare workers who speake to Luv News believed many pregnant women who used to attend private facilities for antenatal care are unable to do so because of the boycott. The 2012 first quarter health report indicates that antenatal coverage in the Kumasi metropolis dropped to 18 per cent from 32% last year, a situation the health directorate has attributed partly to the issues surrounding NHIS capitation.