Global Social Welfare and Social Policy Debates: Ghana’s Health Insurance Scheme Promotion of the Well-Being of Vulnerable Groups

Quality healthcare services under National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana: perspectives from health policy implementers and beneficiaries

“…The implementers hold the view that an effective referral system is an essential, rigorous accreditation process coupled with good as well as periodic monitoring of health facilities healthcare services. Most of the key factors identified in the study (Table 2) seem to agree with the findings of earlier studies (Kipo-Sunyehzi, 2020;Ratcliffe et al, 2020;Akweongo et al, 2021). The implementers also indicated in the responses of their compliance with the Ministry of Health and GHS quality assurance manuals and documents in the provision of quality healthcare services (Ghana Heath Service, 2007Ministry of Health, 2017).…”

“…Thus, the insured experienced more shouts, verbal abuses, spent longer waiting time (hours at facilities), and tend to suffer from different forms of discrimination during healthcare service delivery. The beneficiaries attributed these negative attitudes towards them to their lack of cash payments for the healthcare services (Kipo-Sunyehzi, 2020;Umar et al, 2020).…”

“…The implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) started in 2004 in Ghana intending to cover all citizens and persons with legal residence in the country, which is Ghana's NHIS journey towards achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Several studies show the NHIS covered about 40 percent of the population while 60 percent are yet to be enrolled into the scheme (Nketiah-Amponsah et al, 2019;Kipo-Sunyehzi et al, 2019;Umar et al, 2020;Kipo-Sunyehzi, 2020). There are reasons for such a rate of population coverage of the NHIS, one of which is the access to quality healthcare services.…”

“…The purposive sampling technique was used for two actors -NHIS beneficiaries and implementers at the selected health facilities, offices, and communities while the snowball sampling method helped more in tracing other beneficiaries. The selection or recruitment of the implementers was based on their positions at the health facilities and offices and their knowledge on NHIS, whereas the beneficiaries were recruited based on their categories: exempt group members, premium payees and contributors based on NHIS laws/regulations and other studies (Government of Ghana, 2003;2004;Creswell, 2014;Kipo-Sunyehzi, 2020). It is important to note uninsured persons and workers who were not involved in NHIS were excluded.…”

Social welfare in the light of topic modelling

“…The definitional difficulties with the concept of social welfare have a long academic pedigree (Arrow, 1950), and successive generations of researchers working within the various social sciences and humanities on this phenomenon have addressed particular slices of it (sometimes referred to as happiness, prosperity, wealth, quality of life, life satisfaction, subjective or societal well-being). Those interested in the role of the state (government) in meeting human needs have emphasised the institutional aspects of achieving social goals (e.g., Esping-Andersen, 1990;Gough, 2000Gough, , 2019Kipo-Sunyehzi, 2021;Madison, 2019;Wilson et al, 2020). They used terms such as social welfare services, social welfare policy or national welfare system.…”