Akufo-Addo and his useless campaign team are perpetually being perpetuating lies about the fact that the NHIS is free. WHAT A CHEAP LIE…anyway lies is their cup of tea. It really saddens my heart any time I hear this crooks lying between their teeth I get worried. How can this toothless Akufo-Addo take the good people of Ghana for granted?

As the various political parties go about their campaigns, an assortment of issues significant to the well being of our people, are being uttered. It is my view however that unless all stakeholders, especially the mass media, make an effort to hold them to a strict standard of authenticity and openness, the propensity will be for some to freely resort to making all kinds of false promises and lying to the people in a desperate bid to win power. AKUFO-ADDO NOT THIS TIME…

From time to time I will be habitually addressing a number of pertinent issues with a view to setting the records straight, in order to enable the electorate make informed choices based on Truth. We are tired of Akufo-Addo and the NPP insulting our intelligence.

NPP's bunkum Claims about Free Healthcare

I want to set the records straight on the claims being made all over the place by Narcotic Peddling People (NPP) Presidential Candidate and his USELESS CAMPAIGN team, about the spectacular achievements of the NPP as far as providing FREE HEALTH CARE is concerned.

Ladies and gentlemen, how truly free, is the free healthcare the ruling NPP is boasting about? Why are these crooks insinuating this free health care nonsense when they know is not free? I don’t understand why these drug peddlers are trying very hard to win power by lying to the good people of Ghana. NPP YOU LIE BAD…

The salient truth is that healthcare in Ghana is NOT free as is being perpetuating by the narcotic party and their crack head leader Akufo-Addo...

The ruling NPP continues to trumpet that it has succeeded in providing Ghanaians with free healthcare whereas a close examination of the scheme exposes this claim as false. Visionless Akufo-Addo, Ghanaians are waiting for your true manifesto, please stop lying to the good people of Ghana. YOUR TRACK RECORD STINKS…

The fact of the matter is that Ghanaians are directly or indirectly financing the healthcare through the obligatory payment of premium which has astronomically augmented from 75,000 old cedis to nearly 300,000 old cedis today. WHAT A PITY…

It is also a salient fact that all Ghanaians are making regular contributions to the NHIS anytime they patronize goods and services that are levied with the 2.5 percent National Health Insurance Levy.

It is also true that workers of Ghana make additional contribution to the funding of the scheme by virtue of the monthly deduction of 2.5% of their SSNIT contributions.

It is an irrefutable fact also that under the previous cash and carry system, there were ample exemptions that applied to infants under five years, lactating mothers, pregnant women, the elderly and the indigents, that is destitute people. WHAT HAPPEN TO ALL THIS…callous NPP…WE SHALL SEE COME DECEMBER…

Under the current so called free healthcare of the NPP government, anyone falling in these categories, who is not registered with the NHIS scheme, has no help and is condemned to his or her fate. CALLOUS NPP…SHAME ON YOU…

The gravity of this problem becomes even more conspicuous, when we remember that while 9 million of the 22 million Ghanaians are said to have registered with the scheme, UNDP Ghana Human Development Report 2007, vigorously states that only 6.8 percent of the total population of Ghana, that is less than 1.5 million Ghanaians had the National Health Insurance ID cards. This clearly depicts that the overwhelming majority of our people are not accessing the national health facility contrary to the loud proclamations of Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP. WHY OH WHY MR. CRACK HEAD…

In the wisdom of the NPP therefore, the destitute, infants, the elderly, pregnant and lactating mothers who have no means of paying the health insurance premium of 300,000 old cedis should not be given health care. WHAT A PITY…

In the meantime, these people like virtually all Ghanaians are making regular contributions to the NHIS anytime they patronize goods and services that are levied with the 2.5 percent National Health Insurance Levy.

Even though the NPP crack head candidate and his buddies in government told the people of Ghana that the 2.5% NHIL was to be levied for only six months, they have deceitfully maintained the levy from 2003 to date. Ghanaians have continued to contribute to the scheme, even though the penniless and other susceptible groups are deprived of access to free treatment unless they pay the premium. WHAT A PITY…

In the midst of all this blatant insensitivity, the NPP and its Presidential Candidate continue deceiving the Ghanaian people that the NPP has made healthcare Free in the country. How free is this Free?

The Narcotic Peddling People (NPP) and its crack head candidate have intentionally cloaked from the people of Ghana a number of very grave problems that have continued to bedevil the scheme since its inception- problems which would not have been encountered if they had keenly listened to the prudence of the NDC not to rush the bill through parliament in the manner they did.

Recently, while on a visit to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the NPP Presidential Candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo was informed that as at July this year, National Health Insurance claims owed to the hospital from 2007 had accrued to 14 billion cedis. Similar colossal amounts are owed many health institutions all over the country, both public and private- a situation which has seriously compromised their ability to obtain imperative drugs and other essentials and thus brought about a marked diminution in the quality of healthcare delivery all over the country.

OPD numbers in our health institutions have gone up significantly and in certain instances reached as high as 150 percent, sometimes due to the false belief that healthcare would be free. This situation has resulted in waiting time in our hospitals going up, with some patients, including people scheduled for urgent surgeries, having to wait for many hours, sometimes days before seeing a doctor.

It does not therefore come as a surprise that UNDP Ghana Human Development Report 2007 shows that infant mortality which in 1999 was 57 deaths per 1000 live births had gone up to about 70 deaths per 1000 live births.

Health Infrastructure

In the NPP's rush to play to the gallery and create the false impression that they have delivered absolutely free healthcare to Ghanaians, they have completely forgotten that without the availability of adequate healthcare infrastructure all over the nation, the whole quality healthcare talk can only remain a delusion. Ghanaians wish to enquire from the NPP presidential candidate, Nana Akufo Addo and his narcotic peddling party (NPP), how many regional hospitals they have been able to construct over the last eight years. They should just name one regional hospital they have added to the stock the visionary NDC government bequeathed to them.

The NDC had a programme of building modern, well equipped state of the art regional hospitals in every region of Ghana and similar district hospitals in all districts as the basis for the take off of a national health insurance scheme. In that regard, new regional hospitals were built in the Central Region, the Brong Ahafo Region, the Volta Region; the Effia Nkwanta hospital in Sekondi, in the Western Region was refurbished and elevated into a regional hospital, while the Korle-Bu, 37 Military, and Okomfo Anokye Teaching hospitals were expansively converted to better serve as national referral hospitals.

The Tamale hospital was on course to be rehabilitated into a Regional and Teaching hospital when the NDC left office in the year 2000. Eight years down the road, the Tamale Hospital has been left to deteriorate. NPP STOP PEDDLING LIES FOR YOU HAVE FAILED GHANAIANS MISERABLY…YOUR RECORD STINKS…

We can also give examples of new modern district hospitals built or planned for construction all over the country when the NDC left office.

I confidently ask again- how many district hospitals have CRACK HEAD Nana Akufo Addo and his NARCOTIC PEDDLING PEOPLE (NPP) has added to the large stock left by the NDC? I AM PROUD OF NDC ACHIEVEMENTS as far as health care is concern. The difference is crystal clear.

Human Resource Development & Service Conditions

while boasting about the free heath care they claim is being provided under their tenure, the important issues of human resource requirements and working conditions of health workers continue to be relegated to the background. COME CLEAN SUCKERS...

It is a fact that over the last eight years, there has been no radical improvement in numbers of doctors and other health professionals contrary to Nana Akufo- Addo's claims at the I.E.A presidential encounter recently. The number of nurses being produced annually is about 2000 and nowhere near the 7000 Nana Akufo-Addo mentioned. Indeed, the total workforce including doctors, nurses, health aides, laboratory staff etc in our health services amount to a total of 7648. AKUFO-ADDO ALAKPATOR…JULOR

so it is plain that in addition to creating a patently false impression that the overwhelming majority of our people are enjoying free health care, the candidate of the NPP, Nana Akufo-Addo has also been deliberately misleading the nation about the numbers of health professionals in the country. AKUFO-ADDO AMALELOR…

Our doctors, nurses and other health professionals continue to experience serious hardships brought about by escalating cost of living in the face of less than proportionate compensation. We continue hearing about Housemen and nurses out of training working for months without pay. WHAT AN INFAMY!!! Yet against this background of anguish facing personnel within the health sector, Crack head Akufo-Addo and his party are going about singing songs of Free and wonderful healthcare to our people. AMALELOI…JULOI…SPARE US THIS CHEAP LIES…

At the appropriate time I will go into the full minutiae of the immense corruption that has engulfed the NHIS just as it has engulfed practically every facet of national life under Nana Akufo-Addo’s ruling NPP. VOTERS REJECT THESE SERIAL LIARS…

I am humbly calling on Ghanaians to open their eyes and see through the free healthcare trick and fabrication being perpetuated to them by a desperate ruling party and its Presidential Candidate determined to use every false means to deceive the people and win back their mandate.

We have always insisted that based on our pilot schemes, we would have introduced a comprehensive National Health Insurance Scheme after the 2000 elections. What the NPP has introduced is NOT a national health insurance scheme; it is a warren of one hundred and thirty eight district insurance schemes which does not afford the registered beneficiary in one district the opportunity to access health care in another district. The lapse is against the background of the fact that every Ghanaian pays 2.5 percent National Health Insurance Levy to keep the system running.

Under Kufuor’s watch, the health care system is deteriorating. Yaws, chicken- pox, guinea worm and buruli ulcer which we brought under control have re- emerged as major public health problems. According to Prof. Agyemang Badu Akosa, the immediate past and first Director General of the Ghana Health Service, (Graphic, Sat. 16th June, 2007) life expectancy has reduced in Ghana since 2000.

PROFESSOR ATTA-MILLS’S DETAILED POLICY ON HEALTH.

Very soon the NDC will outdoor their comprehensive manifesto which will delineate its policies in all the sectors including healthcare. STAY TUNED… "Healthy people are productive people. The NDC will build a Ghana Health Service which provides a high standard of service to every citizen". "NDC Government will support Primary Health Care. However equal emphasis will be placed on preventive as on curative medicine”. PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE… "Developing a second-rate health service is the best guarantee of an accelerated brain drain in the sector. We need to develop an affordable but world class health services sector to cater to all segments of our population, to attract patients from outside the country, and to provide the conditions that make it worthwhile for the best trained health service workers to stay". Professor Atta Mills' policy on health, much like his policy on education, is predicated on his belief that access to good and affordable health service is a right of every citizen. As such, he echoes the agenda of his party (the National Democratic Congress) which argues that "Health care must be provided as a matter of governmental obligation irrespective of economic or social circumstances". To achieve his objective, Professor Atta Mills proposes a two-pronged strategy of major emphasis on preventive medicine (with special attention to malaria, buruli ulcer, tuberculosis, eradication of guinea worm, and an intensification of the fight against HIV/AIDS), as well as on curative medicine. In the latter context, Professor Atta Mills recommends a major effort for the Ghanaian health services to develop world class expertise in: the treatment of burns, reconstructive and cosmetic surgery, radiotherapy, nuclear medicine, cardio-thoracic services, dialysis, eye, orthopedic and ENT services. The emphasis on curative and cosmetic medicine may appear ambiguous for a health sector which to provide services as a "right of every citizen". It is, however, to be explained by the following facts: Ghanaians with the means have always been able to seek medical treatment elsewhere. Moreover, the best trained medical personnel have had no problems finding better opportunities outside the country to practice their profession. The vast majority of the population, however, is obliged to rely on the national health services for addressing their medical problems. Thus, unless the national health services are developed to such an extent that both Ghanaians with the means and the best trained medical personnel have an incentive to stay, the availability of good and affordable health care to the vast majority, would prove illusory. In terms of financing, the public sector has a primordial role to play in the training of health specialists (including the local training of physiotherapists, laboratory technologists, and radiographers), as well as in establishing health facilities. The private sector establishment of health facilities and private practice will be encouraged. Health insurance (both public and private, national and local) will be a major source of mobilizing additional resources for the sector and for ensuring financial access, especially for the middle classes. NDC CARES FOR YOU…VOTE ATTA-MILLS AND THE NDC FOR A BTTER GHANA.

Humphrey Tettey Mensah (booker tee) htmensah@yahoo.com