Tutu-Boahene backs free primary healthcare policy

Ghana’s newly announced free primary healthcare initiative has been described as a step in the right direction, but analysts say it leaves the country’s deeper health financing problems largely untouched.

Dr Bernard Tutu-Boahene, a lecturer in political marketing at the University of Education, Winneba, said while the policy introduced by the Health Minister is welcoming news, the public must understand what it does and does not cover.

Speaking on JoyNews AM Show on Tuesday, he pointed out that Ghana’s healthcare journey, from the old cash-and-carry system to the introduction of the NHIS, has always been driven by the need to protect the most vulnerable. But the NHIS, he argued, has never fully delivered on that goal. “The basic question is that a lot more people seem not to have the financial muscle to register under the National Health Insurance Scheme, because of the poverty gap,” he said.

That financial barrier, he noted, has long kept sick Ghanaians away from facilities, even basic ones. “In most cases, people feel reluctant to go to hospitals. Why? Because they don’t even have the money for a diagnosis and all that.” The situation, he added, is worse in rural areas where reaching even a CHPS compound remains a hurdle for many.

The free primary healthcare initiative, he explained, targets exactly that entry-level reluctance, focusing on prevention, early detection, and referrals rather than treatment. “It is not assumed that the primary healthcare is going to give you a treatment cover. It’s just a free provision that will help you to diagnose your problem,” he clarified. When cases exceed what primary facilities can handle, patients are referred upward, to district hospitals and beyond, where the NHIS is then expected to cover costs. “When you get in there, that is where the National Health Insurance will kick in,” he said.

But even that handover point is fraught with difficulty. “It is providing a first-level tier of care, but it is not actually dealing with the financial complications that we are having,” he concluded.