Implications of COVID-19 Pandemic for Health Financing System in Ghana

Abstract

This article examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health financing system in Ghana. The COVID-19 pandemic presents two different crises—a health crisis and an economic crisis, and these have implications for the health financing system in Ghana. The pandemic is likely to have adverse effects on the various sources of healthcare financing, including government support, donor support, national health insurance scheme (NHIS) and out-of-pocket payments, which will impact the general delivery of healthcare in the country. Government support to the health sector in general is likely to be rechannelled into fighting the pandemic considering the declining tax and other non-tax revenues as well as huge expenditure commitment. Donor support is also likely to be scaled down and existing funds redirected into dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The NHIS will be affected, as many subscribers are not likely to renew their health insurance policies because of the fear of contracting the coronavirus when they visit health facilities. Also, the non-attendance at health facilities by health consumers will impact out-of-pocket payments and the hospitals’ ability to generate sufficient internal resources for their operations. A number of useful recommendations are proffered with the aim of improving health financing system in Ghana during and post-COVID-19 pandemic.

Approaches to Health Efficiency across the European Space through the Lens of the Health Budget Effort

“…According to some authors [ 11 ], the pandemic has combined two different types of crisis—health and economic—which together have affected national health systems, and budgetary rebalancing measures are recommended, corroborated by an increase in the degree of collection and an increase in the capacity of the system to generate tax payments, which is the measure of sustainable development of an economic system. The same problem-solution approach is found in their research [ 12 ], which emphasizes the need for fiscal decentralization, reforming the system so that the interaction between economic agents and control bodies involves a novel approach to the taxpayer-state representative relationship.…”

Marburg virus in Ghana: A public health threat to Ghanaians and to Africans

“…The outbreak initially posed a higher level of health security threat in Ghana, but it has been lowered [9,18]. Similar to Ebola, Marburg spreads from human to human by direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membrane) with blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people and with surfaces and materials (like clothes, beddings) contaminated with these fluids [16].…”

Fiscal Policy Responses to COVID-19 in Danida Priority Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…However, Abor and Abor (2021) document that for the first half-year of 2020, Ghana was short of revenue mobilisation by 26% of the target, mainly as a result of shortfalls in oil revenue, trade taxes and non-tax revenues. At the same time, expenditures far exceeded pre-pandemic projections (at least 5 percentage points of GDP), such that the projected fiscal deficit has increased from 6% of GDP (October 2019) to 16% (April 2021), creating a significant funding gap (Table 3).…”