Authorities of the Tetteh Quarshie Memorial Hospital at Akuapem Mampong in the Eastern Region say the hospital is cash-strapped; a situation that has forced them to suspend the provision of meals to patients on admission.

According to the authorities, the Hospital is owed in 11 months arrears in unpaid health insurance claims by the National Health Insurance Authorities.

Its internally generated funds have also dwindled significantly for the past month due to the strike by the members of the Government Hospital and Pharmacists Association as well as that of the laboratory staff.

The Administrator of the Hospital, Francis Loguniah, told TV3 the strike occasioned low outpatient cases at the facility resulting in the decline in the internally generated funds.

He noted the seriousness of the issue forced managers of the facility to last week suspend the provision of meals to patients on admission. In-patients and some staff were being given meals twice daily.

He said the Hospital spend GHC6,000 every two weeks to feed these patients, most of who are using National Health Insurance to access services at no charge, noting it is having a serious toll on the finances of the facility

Mr Loguniah said 90 per cent of patients who access medical services at the Hospital use National Health Insurance with only 10 per cent being cash-and-carry.

The Hospital’s kitchen has since last week run out of food supplies and unavailability of funds to purchase some has forced its closure.

“We have explained to the patients we were cash strapped and could not feed them as we use to,” Mr Loguniah told TV3, adding even when we fed them,  families still brought food”.

He said the Hospital would have to reconsider its policy on the provision of meals to in-patients “because other facilities do not offer such services.”

Meanwhile, he revealed the authorities have had an emergency meeting with the National Health Insurance Authority who said one month claims have been released which will take about a week for the transaction to go through for the money to hit their account.

“So hopefully by Wednesday we should serve food,” he said.

By Yvonne Neequaye|TV3|3news.com|Ghana