The Ghana Medical Trust Fund, popularly known as MahamaCares, will not sponsor medical treatment outside Ghana, the Fund’s Administrator, Obuobia Darko-Opoku, has disclosed.
Speaking in an interview on Adom TV’s Badwam, Madam Darko-Opoku explained that the Fund’s governing law restricts financial support strictly to treatment within the country.
According to her, the decision is aimed at strengthening Ghana’s healthcare system while ensuring that more patients benefit from the Fund’s resources.
“Our Act stipulates that any condition that requires you to go beyond the borders of the country for treatment, we cannot finance that,” she stated.
She explained that treatments sought abroad often come with extremely high costs, which could instead be used to save more lives locally.
“Because a patient, for instance travelling to India for a kidney transplant, will bring a bill of about 60 to 70 thousand dollars. Meanwhile, there is a young boy with a hole in the heart and it will take about GH¢270,000 for him to undergo surgery at the Cardiothoracic Centre,” she said.
“With the cost of one person travelling to India, we can save about 10 children at the Cardio Centre at Korle Bu,” she added.
Madam Darko-Opoku said the Fund’s long-term vision is to support the improvement of healthcare facilities in Ghana so patients would no longer feel compelled to travel abroad for specialised treatment.
“So this means that we have to stock our hospitals with the necessary equipment so that people wouldn’t have to travel abroad for treatment,” she noted.
She revealed that after supporting areas such as catheterisation and critical surgeries, attention would shift towards improving cancer treatment infrastructure in the country.
“After the catheterisation, we would move our attention to the cancer hospitals so that their gamma knife and other highly sophisticated machines will be accessible there and people won’t have to travel abroad,” she explained.
Madam Darko-Opoku further disclosed that access to support under MahamaCares would be based on referrals from specialist doctors at approved hospitals across the country.
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