Evaluating the Impact of the National Health Insurance Scheme of Ghana on Surgical Care

It is estimated that 11%-33% of the global burden of disease is attribute to surgical conditions. Yet, globally 3.7 billion people face financial catastrophe if surgical care is needed. Ghana, a country of 27 million people has a 14-year experience with a national health insurance scheme (NHIS) that provides coverage for 95% of the health conditions afflicting Ghanaians and includes access to surgical care. Despite much progress in providing Universal Health Coverage through NHIS, prior work shows that up to 18% of insured households make catastrophic health payments for routine care which is largely unaffordable for the poor. Particularly in Ghana where 1 out of 4 individuals live on less than 1.25 dollars per day. More importantly in 2015, the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery called for national surgical plans that provide 100% coverage against catastrophic health expenditures as a result of seeking surgical care.

The premise of Dr. Okoroh's GloCal project is to describe the surgical conditions that are included in the health insurance scheme and to evaluate whether insurance protect surgical patients against catastrophic health payments through a single institutional review at Korle-bu Teaching Hospital. With this work she hopes to develop a set of recommendations to the ministry of health and the national health insurance authority on how to improve health-care financing for surgical care in Ghana.

Early results of our study show that NHIS provides coverage for most common surgical conditions including symptomatic hernia, breast cancer, and appendicitis. 70% of the total cost of surgical care was covered by NHIS, yet 56% of insured individuals made catastrophic payments for surgical care. Surgery is unaffordable as on average insured individuals spent close to 40% of their annual income on surgical care. Particularly the coverage of medicines, supplies, imaging, and other ancillary services are sparse which are necessary to the provision of surgical care. Our recommendations include; NHIS increasing the proportion of the total cost of surgical care covered for the poor and addressing the gaps in coverage of ancillary services. Further work includes understanding how households economically cope with making payments and the contribution of borrowing and other financing mechanisms in reducing the burden of cost. Our new study characterizes the cost of trauma care which is a major source of disability and injury for young adults in Ghana. Efforts are being made to engage policymakers on healthcare reform in Ghana.