Adopt Capitation Model to Cut Health Sector Unemployment – Prof. Dodoo

By Stephen Freeman

Renowned Ghanaian pharmacist and academic, Professor Alexander Nii Oto Dodoo, has called for a major shift in Ghana’s healthcare delivery model.

According to Prof. Dodoo, the government cannot continue to employ all healthcare workers, describing the current centralised system under the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service as unsustainable.

Answering a question on addressing the growing unemployment among pharmacists in an exclusive interview The New Finder on the sidelines of the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists’ (WAPCP) Ghana Chapter Annual General and Scientific Meeting, Prof. Dodoo, who was the thematic speaker for the event proposed a community-based model where doctors, pharmacists, and nurses operate independently under a capitation system and are paid based on the population they serve, whether in the public or private sector.

“We need to look at a model of healthcare delivery in Ghana. Governments cannot hire all healthcare workers and healthcare provision, which is heavily centralised on the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service, is bound to fail,” he said. 

“What we need is for all healthcare professionals, whether it’s doctors, pharmacists, nurses, to operate, maybe akin to what operates in the UK where you could have a form of capitation that’s given to the area, you are paid for your practice, whether you’re in the private sector or the public sector. And then, based on how you run your business, the community will be better served”, Prof. Dodoo stressed.

He added that such a system would expand healthcare access to deprived areas, create employment opportunities for unemployed nurses and pharmacists, and ensure that Ghanaians everywhere benefit from their tax contributions.

“When we do that, we’ll spread healthcare delivery much better. Because now, you have people staying in areas of Ghana without a facility, and yet they pay taxes. But if you use a combination of capitation and, what I would say, independent prescribers of doctor or pharmacy-led practices where government just subsidises based on the population, and then the doctor, the pharmacist and other health professionals will run the service for the benefit of the people, but on contract to government”, he noted.

Prof. Dodoo further emphasised that healthcare professionals should run their own practices under government contracts, noting that the traditional payroll-based approach is now obsolete and unsustainable.

“Rather than waiting for the government to put them on the payroll, which, frankly, is something from the past, and not sustainable, healthcare professionals should establish their own entities or mobile services to better serve the needs of the people,” Prof. Dodoo encouraged.