“Mr. Speaker, the National Health Insurance Scheme of Ghana currently covers the cost of chemotherapy for cancer patients. Unfortunately for breast cancer, it does not cover the cost of breast reconstruction surgery”.
Sarah Adwoa Safo, Member of Parliament for Dome Kwabenya has expressed concern on Government inability to cover cost for breast reconstruction surgeries in the country. She expressed this concern when she read a statement on the floor of the house to mark the Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
She stated that breast cancer “is by far the most common cancer in women worldwide, both in developed and developing countries”.
According to her, a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that there has been a twenty percent increase in breast cancer issues in the year 2018 as compared to previous years.
She said, considering the margin of increase in the number of breast cancer related issues, it is imperative that a lot more needs to be done by government. One of such she said is government taking the necessary steps to expand its coverage of cost to breast reconstruction surgery in the country.
She said it is unfortunate that many lives have been lost to breast cancer due to the inability to pay for the cost of breast reconstruction surgeries in the country.
Sarah Adwoa Safo said government taking up the cost of these surgeries will help reduce the number of lives lost to breast cancer.
The legislator also called on the Ministry of Health to promote comprehensive breast cancer control programs as part of its national control plans as carried out by the WHO.
She said this will help “reduce the rate of women likely to suffer from this disease”.
She further recommended to government to make amendments to the National Health Insurance Scheme Act (Act 654) if that is required to enable government to cover the cost of the surgeries.
By: Theresa Adezewa Ayittey
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