Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh has disclosed that the Ministry of Health will convene a meeting with key stakeholders on Wednesday, October 29, to find a lasting solution to the recent breakdown of electronic health record systems that disrupted service delivery across several health facilities in the country.
Speaking at a Stakeholders’ Conference organised by the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) in Accra, the minister said the engagement will seek to identify the root causes of the disruptions and develop a comprehensive plan to prevent future occurrences.
“The National Health Insurance Authority has gone through some transformations, from piloting the mutual health insurance to the national health insurance as we have it now,” he said. “It is not by coincidence that we have sustainable national health insurance at the moment. It is because it is anchored on domestic resource mobilisation, which we must not take for granted.”
The minister noted that Ghana’s health insurance system continues to show resilience despite declining foreign aid.
He attributed this to the government’s commitment to strengthening domestic resource mobilisation and the uncapping of the NHIS Fund, which has improved financial sustainability.
“And that is why we are not experiencing issues like because there is a cut of aid, we are not able to pay claims; because there’s shrinking aid, we are not able to pay claims,” he explained. “When you have a strong domestic mobilisation of resources, there are no strings attached, and you are able to invest the resources where they are needed most.”
Touching on the electronic records challenges, Mr. Akandoh said the ministry is taking a deliberate and coordinated approach to resolving the problem.
“There is some current development about our electronic records of our patients in the country. It’s been widely discussed and for us in the Ministry of Health, we don’t just come out to speak. One will tell you the problems and where we have inherited it from; we also tell you the solutions,” he said.
He assured that the ministry is committed to transparency and accountability in addressing the issue.
“Today, I wouldn’t want to preempt what we’ll be doing tomorrow. I can assure you that tomorrow morning by 9 a.m. we’ll gather our stakeholders. I will take you through from what we inherited at the ministry, what we are going through and specifically what we are doing to fix it,” he added.
The nationwide challenge has left many hospitals struggling to deliver essential services to patients, compelling some facilities to temporarily revert to the old ‘Cash and Carry’ system.
While the situation has seen some improvement, several hospitals continue to grapple with persistent technical difficulties.