The Minister of Health, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye has directed Management of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital to issue a statement explaining to the public how it arrived at an increase in dialysis fees.
The Hospital has increased the cost of dialysis from 380 to 491 cedis, indicating it is not enough to cover the cost of operations.
Patients who thronged the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital for dialysis are having to cough up an extra 111 cedis to foot their bills or be turned away.
Management says is in line with parliamentary approval of a new fee of 491 cedis from the previous 380 cedis.
In September last year, the hospital announced an increment from 380 to 765 cedis but this was quickly shot down after a huge public outcry as parliament’s subsidiary legislation committee noted it had not sanctioned any such increase.
The subsidiary legislation committee says it did not approve any such fees but referred the matter to the Finance Ministry to cut out the tax component on the cost of reagents among others to ensure the cost of dialysis is drastically reduced.
The committee was thus surprised at the figure of 491 questioning what transpired between the Ministry of Finance and the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
But speaking on the issue in an interview with Starr News, the Health Minister, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye the yet to be release statement by the Hospital Management will state whether Parliament was involved in determining the fees or not.
“I have asked Korle Bu Teaching Hospital to issue a communique to the whole Ghanaian public as to the processes that the fees went through from Management to Board and if Parliament too was involved they should let the public know. If this release comes out this week and it so happens that Parliament has not approved then it it is an illegal charge. But if Parliament has approved it will also show that the peoples representatives were involved.
“Although I am the supervising Minister, I allow agencies and those in charge to also come around and let the world know what they are doing. So, the assurance I have for you is that before the end of this week we will issue a statement from Korle Bu or the PR Unit explaining the processes they went trough and if Parliament was involved. Because the last time that these issues came up, the strong admonishing that went to Korle Bu from the Ministry is that make sure you go through all the laid down process. And so I will not be their lawyer today, rather I will ask them through the Ministry to issue their statement. If it comes out Ghanaians will be the better judges.”
Source: Kasapafmonline.com
