The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Dr Dacosta Aboagye says there is an urgent need for health sector reforms in Ghana due to some hospitals refusing to accept NHIS cards.

According to him, there is a need to end illegal charges that some healthcare providers impose on patients.

Speaking on the JoyNews’ AM show on Friday, he stated that “When you look at other jurisdictions, , they guarantee what we call... like what we do in the petroleum industry, the automatic price adjustment. But if you look at our act, our act stipulate that we should do a yearly review, but you see that that is not really helping because it is not realistic. Because if we do a yearly review, it means when there is a spike in price, the pharmaceutical industry obviously they will still be complaining. So, I believe that it is time for reforms,”

Dr Dacosta Aboagye proposed the introduction of automatic price adjustments as a means to stabilise the pharmaceutical industry.

According to him, this measure would provide the much-needed stability for the sector and ensure that pharmaceutical companies can operate with the assurance of fair prices.

“I am recommending a nation-wide tariff review committee when, obviously, prices go up. Depending on the economic situation, that committee would actually sit and review the tariff then we start to implement it.

“That would be one of the solutions to curbing these illegal charges, so at the end of the day, it could be that that is happening, but we also need to put our house in order to make sure that we are meeting them in such a way that they would have no right to be charging the patient,” he noted.