Govt intends to clear electricity bills of defaulting hospitals
The Minister of Health designate, Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye, has announced plans to secure funding to clear hospital electricity bills.
Speaking at the Health Sector Annual Summit 2024, Dr Okoe-Boye acknowledged the impact of disconnection on hospitals, citing its risks to patients.
“Public hospitals in Ghana are not finding it easy to pay some of their electricity bills. Health service providers have bemoaned the use of 40 percent of their revenue to pay electricity bills”.
He further stated that the Health Ministry is taking measures to support government hospitals in paying their electricity bills.
“Additionally, the electricity company of Ghana issued a demand notice to some 91 hospitals with outstanding bills, warning of disconnection should they fail to pay their bills. We have had some discussions with the Ministry of Finance, and the government has worked out an arrangement to send relief to all these hospitals.
“Going forward, we are working on modalities to be efficient with our energy use in our hospitals”.
Earlier, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) issued notices to 91 hospitals with outstanding bills, threatening disconnection from the national grid if payments were not made.
Before ECG’s instruction, the Ministry of Health (MoH) had directed all government health facilities to, from June 1, 2023, use Internally Generated Funds (IGF) to pay their electricity bills.
At that time, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, the Ranking Member on the Health Committee of Parliament, proposed several measures the government could adopt to address the issue.
Akandoh emphasized that the disconnection of the power supply to these hospitals would not only impact the facilities but also pose a threat to patient’s health status.
The minority suggested exploring alternative funding mechanisms for health facilities, such as the National Health Insurance Fund covering some utility bills to ensure uninterrupted healthcare services.
“While serving notice to the ECG that health service delivery is a social good, the government must work as tediously to ensure that maintenance of health service delivery as a social good is not threatened by this dereliction of duty towards the maintenance and provision of the same. Article 342 of the 1992 constitution guarantees the right to good health. Because of this, services provided by health facilities are generally provided at cost plus a small margin to ensure that the service can continuously provide the neediest service sustainably”.
“The minority thinks that the government should find another reliable funding mechanism other than the IGF of health facilities to cover these important expenditure line items. In this regard, the government could consider if the National Health Insurance Fund could take up some of the utility bills of health facilities to enhance or ensure that the service is not curtailed,” Mintah Akandoh noted.