Some clients have complained that staff of the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) demand unauthorized payments from them, which tend to increase the cost of health care delivery.
The clients, who raised the allegations on five broad themes including effectiveness of payment system for patients, availability and accessibility of medicine/service to patients, affordability of medicines/health services to patients, therefore scored TTH, 41 percent for health care delivery.
This formed part of the fighting unapproved charges for health services project implemented in the Tamale Metropolis by Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development in partnership with League of Youth Association with funding from STAR-Ghana.
The project was to draw the attention of hospital authorities to perceptions of citizens on some forms of unapproved fees charged at health facilities in the Metropolis and to create space for them to restore confidence of citizens in accessing quality health service by dealing with corruption at the hospitals.
On the issue of effectiveness of payment system for patients, clients said, “Even though there is proper payment system for services at TTH, certain health workers have gone behind the system and extort clients.”
They complained of paying GH₵400.00 at the theatre for caesarean section to deliver babies without being issued official receipts while others said “some nurses demand money before clients are allowed to see their babies.”
On the issues of availability and accessibility of medicine to patients, clients with even NHIS cards reported that staff of TTH kept referring them to private clinics or pharmacies to seek medical services or purchase drugs.
According to the scorecard, some clients perceived that personnel at TTH owned or had interest in those private clinics/pharmacies that they always referred them to.
On the issue of attitude/behaviour (punctuality), kindness, respect of staff to patients, clients said health workers spent more time on their phones and watching television instead of attending to them.
Patients, who visited Tamale Central Hospital and Tamale West Hospital also raised similar concerns and based on the scorecard rated them 29 per cent and 38 per cent respectively for health care delivery.
