NHIS coverage of mental disorders crucial

 The government must be commended for expanding the benefit package of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) once again, this time to include four mental health conditions, namely depression, bipolar, anxiety and schizophrenia disorders.

One good thing about the decision is that its implementation will take effect from November 1, 2024 with the coverage involving outpatient services and the initial acute hospitalisation stage.

The NHIS was created by the National Health Insurance Act of August 2003 (Act 650), and the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) was commis­sioned under the NHIS Act “to secure the implementation of a national health insurance policy that ensures access to basic health­care services for all Ghanaian residents.

The NHIS is said to cover over 95 per cent of disease conditions that mostly afflict Ghanaians.

At a point some people were arguing that certain diseases excluded from the list must be considered for inclusion.

Examples of the exclusions are very expensive procedures such as certain surgeries, cancer treatments (other than breast and cervical cancer), organ transplants, and dialysis; non-vital services such as cosmetic surgery; and some high profile items such as HIV antiretroviral drugs, which are already being heavily sub­sidised by the National AIDS Programme.

Thus, it did not come as a strange move when in November 2021, as part of the National Health Insurance Week, the Ministry of Health expanded the NHIS benefit package to, among others, cover family planning and childhood cancers such as leukae­mia, nephroblastoma, retinoblas­toma, and neuroblastoma.

The current expansion comes to boost the mental health of the people.

Mental healthcare is very crucial to the wellbeing of the people, both the patients and those around them.

Take schizophrenia, for exam­ple. It is a serious mental illness that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves.

People suffering schizophrenia behave in ways that give them out as having lost touch with reality, which can be distressing for them and for their family and friends.

The experts say people with schizophrenia are usually diag­nosed between the ages of 16 and 30, after the first episode of psychosis and starting treatment as soon as possible following the first episode of psychosis is an important step toward recovery.

We know that in our country people who show signs of mental disorders are sometimes left to their fate because family mem­bers are too poor to pay for their treatment or just dismiss them as troublesome people.

The current NHIS expansion is, therefore, a huge incentive to both the patients of the mental disor­ders specified and their families.

Mental health is very import­ant to every individual and the society at large as mental disorders deprive patients of the benefits of normal living.

Such people can fail to pursue their cherished dreams or even abandon the dreams if they have already started nurturing them.

Imagine a university student, for example, abandoning schooling due to a mental disorder.

Some patients can even commit suicide.

In the end, the family and the society lose the worthy contri­butions these people would have otherwise offered to the progress of the families and the society.

Looking at the harm mental disorders can cause individu­als, families and the society, the government expanding the benefit package of the NHIS once again to include four mental health conditions should be hailed.