Pay hospitals outstanding arrears to give them respite - Medical Superintendents to govt

The Medical Superintendents' Group, MSG, held its 19th Annual Conference on Thursday, October 7, 2021, at Jirapa in the Upper West Region.

The selection of this year's theme: "Health Crisis Management; lessons learnt from the COVID-19 Pandemic" was occasioned by the debilitating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on health care in general and hospitals in particular, as well as the anticipation of a third or fourth wave and other future outbreaks.

In attendance were: the Chief Director of the Upper West Regional Coordinating Council, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, and representatives of the Paramount Chief of the Jirapa Traditional Council. Others are Acting Director of Institutional Care Division of the Ghana Health Service, President of the Medical Superintendents' Group, and former Director of Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (PPME).

As well as the Municipal Coordinating Director of the Jirapa Municipal Assembly, members of SMG, Members of Parliament, and representatives of other professional bodies.

Speaking at the event, the National President of the Medical Superintendents' Group, Dr. Joseph Tambil, bemoaned the poor service conditions of their members and called on the powers that be, to do something about the situation.

He said many of their younger colleague-doctors acting as Medical Superintendents or heads of polyclinics do not receive any form of benefits for the managerial role they offer and appealed to the authorities to either regularise their positions or institute an "acting allowance" package for members.

He also requested that members be put on their technical grades to be paid an allowance for the managerial role they play in the facilities they superintend and wondered why it was so difficult for the GHS and government to do so.

The outgoing President of the MSG enumerating some achievements of the executives said under his leadership, the group through its advocacy, had been able to see to the discontinuation of payment of water and electricity bills by hospitals.

He added that the MSG was also instrumental in reversing the directive by the Ministry of Finance to pay 30% of their Internal Generated Funds (IDF) back to governments coffers. He said through their intervention too, the lack of time between the submission of the NHIA claims and disbursement has now been reduced to a 6-month period, unlike in the past when it took hospitals 13 months to be paid.

He furthered that the recent trend of recruiting directors of Regional Hospitals from the MSG as opposed to the past where they were brought from the teaching hospitals means the group has become prominent and is now being recognised.

He again touted the efforts of the outgoing executives for successfully negotiating a vehicle higher purchase scheme for the group to enable members to acquire vehicles with flexible payment plans.

Sharing some challenges hospitals and health facilities are enduring resulting from the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Dr. Joseph Tambil bemoaned a lot of health facilities were stressed and are yet to recover from the distortions of the market caused by Covid-19 when prices of common items skyrocketed.

He said despite this, the facilities "did not receive any cushioning to enable us to withstand the shocks as happened for other organisations and other sectors. Many hospitals have still not received any payment for their services rendered."



He said the development has further stressed those facilities and that: "when this happens, it is the Medical Superintendent or Medical Director that bears the most brunt. So we're calling on the powers that be, to make sure that these monies are paid to facilities to lessen our stress," he explained.

He noted that the framework contracting for drugs also continues to pose a challenge for the hospitals. According to him, it's the clients that are bearing the brunts since they are not able to buy drugs prescribed for them due to the high prices. He said because of this, some hospitals, therefore, avoid stocking such medications due to their exorbitant prices.

Lamenting the situation where too many expenditures are offloaded onto hospitals without commensurate inflows, with particular concern being conditions of service, Dr. Joseph charged the government through the GHS to ensure conditions of service of its members are paid from the Controller and Accountant-General instead of the hospital coffers.

He added: "GHS has set its requirements for progression in line with those of the teaching hospitals. We think this is counterproductive because the GHS is a service delivery agency. Our requirements for promotion and for career progression should not be purely academic. We should be looking out for service output and experience and things like that rather than tying promotions and all that to that of the teaching hospitals."



"We are delighted by the government's ambitious drive to dramatically improve the number of hospitals through the 'Agenda 111' project. Indeed, if achieved, that'll be the single largest investment in health infrastructure in the history of this country and perhaps on the entire African continent. Much as we welcome it with opened arms, we want to state that it is not enough just to put up these edifices.

"Management of these units will be key in the long-term sustainability of the whole project and I want to say that members of this group have all the experience and expertise in hospital management. And we think that government should look to us in the plan for the management of the hospitals. We're ready and willing to support in that cause," he reiterated.

On his part, the Director-General for Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma Aboagye, while commending the group for their sacrifices and resilience in the fight to curb the spread of the Covid-19 Pandemic amidst the numerous challenges, said his outfit had taken notice of the concerns raised by the leadership of the MSG for onward action.

He acknowledged the critical contributions by all players in the health sector in the fight against the pandemic and observed that the experience gained from the fight would be tapped for future outbreaks.