Private Health Insurance Crucial to Achieve Sustainable Health Goals – CEO

Company News of Friday, August 2, 2019

Source: Myjoyonline.com

2019-08-02

The CEO of Premier Health Insurance said that the role played by private sector players in ensuring that Ghana achieves health sector goals, as well as sustainable health goals, can not be overstated.

Percy Asare Ansah emphasized that, despite the many challenges facing the health sector, the country is making remarkable progress in reducing maternal mortality, HIV spread and child mortality, all of which are Millennium Development Goals and integrated into sustainable development. Goals.

He spoke of the role of private health insurance in Ghana's health architecture on the sidelines of the Ghana Insurance Awards ceremony at the Kempinski Hotel.

In September 2000, Ghana was among the 189 member states that adhered to the Millennium Declaration, which pledged to end extreme poverty and deprivation by 2015.

According to this declaration, it is committed to achieving eight Millennium Development Goals, three of which are related to health; Reduce child mortality (Goal 4), improve maternal health (Goal 5), combat HIV, malaria and other diseases (Goal 6).

Over the years, the objectives of Ghana's health sector have been aligned with them to ensure that by the end of 2015, the country will have addressed most health-related issues.

After more than 15 years of achieving the Millennium Development Goals in health, with the successes and challenges badociated with it, the CEO of Premier Health Insurance insists that the situation would have been worse in the future. lack of initiative in private health insurance.

For example, the goal of the MDGs was to reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.

Regarding the maternal mortality rate, the goal was to reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, and achieve, by 2015, universal access to health care by procreation.

Data from the Ghana Health Service suggest that Ghana was on track to achieve some of the goals, especially Goal Six, but did not achieve the goals set for others. objectives, a situation similar to that of other countries and which led to the declaration of the Sustainable Development Goals post 2015.

While welcoming the impact of the national health insurance scheme on the achievement of some of these goals, Mr. Percy Asare Ansah said that private health insurance played a complementary role in ensuring meeting the country's health needs.

"At Premier, for example, we make sure that our policies take into account all the stages of pregnancy that are part of the WCO. A pregnant woman from conception to delivery has full access to our health facilities and will benefit from the best possible treatment, "he said.

"Where there are complications, our policies always address our mothers," he said.

The Prime Minister further stated that the company's products, which include the Government Employees Plan, the Apomuden Plan and the Workers' Business Plan, were designed to meet the aspirations of the MDGs and make health care accessible. and affordable for all.

In addition to the pregnancy, Asare said his team was treating most diseases common to most Ghanaians, making Premier health products more reliable for clients.

Unbundling claims that private health insurance is expensive; Mr Ansah Asare said that it was always better to prepare for the eventuality, because "the disease does not knock on your door before it happens".

"You can be healthy today and be sick tomorrow, but if you do not have the guarantee of a reliable, reliable and affordable health insurance policy that could ring the knell ", he added.

To make it even easier for patients, Mr Ansah Asare said that his team had introduced an application that could be used to make requests for medicines that would then be brought to your door.

"We have set up a mobile delivery service that allows you to download a Med Pharma application once you go to the hospital and you have a prescription, then you go directly into our back office to make a request and the drug will be delivered. at home, he says.