We need insurance policy to save lives, says Prof Akech
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Juba, Prof. John Akech, has called on the government to design a health insurance policy to save the lives of citizens.
“If we have a health insurance system that was collected from our salaries, each of us would then be able to go to [a] hospital and find treatment,” said prof. Akech.
“It is this money that will pay for the consultant who will be there in the surgery at midnight (even) on Christmas day,” he said.
He was speaking during an event in Juba to commemorate World’s Neglected Tropical Diseases Day.
According to the World Health Organisation, Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are infectious parasitic and bacterial diseases that affect over 1 billion people in the world’s poorest and most marginalised communities. An estimated 200,000 deaths are reported a year worldwide from Neglected Tropical Diseases.
“For a well-organised society, you find nurses on their feet handling emergencies,” Prof Akech stressed.
“To provide health services, you need to have a clear policy. In the hospital, there are no doctors or nurses running around. Doctors trying to be managers, yet they are not, they don’t have finances,” he said.
As governments try to meet the universal health coverage targets established under the Sustainable Development Goal agenda, universal health coverage (UHC) has gained appeal in global health policy and academic circles.
Developing countries such as South Sudan need to pursue ambitious policy steps to implement health-care-insurance plans.
As a senior researcher, Prof Akech said South Sudan needs to have a clear policy that includes everything, saying it does not come through magic.
He said it is sad that even the common preventable diseases that have well-known treatments are still killing people in Juba.
“People die from the same preventable diseases every time, and you know, in some countries, if you have been to a doctor and the doctor has not helped you; you have a right to sue the system,” Prof. Akech stated.
“I don’t think that we have the right to due to lack of anyone policy here,” he added.
“Doctors have graduated from the University of Juba two years later are still jobless, they look shabby because they don’t have anything,” he emphasised
However, Akech said the University of Juba has developed a proposal to solve the health service delivery problem in the country.
“I calculated and found out that the British National Health Services (NHS), which was established three years after the end of World War II, is a system that I use and my family uses. It cares for you from cradle to the grave,” he stressed.
Prof. Akech said based on that philosophy, his team has presented a proposal seeking to readjust the pay structure for everybody, and he hopes that there will be someone to listen.
