School of Government

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https://hdl.handle.net/10566/1560

The School of Government was established by the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in 1993 as part of a broad initiative to meet the education and training challenges of a post-apartheid society and as a means of supporting the process of social, political and economic transformation in South Africa and the Southern African region as a whole. It provides professional and academic training for the public sector at national, provincial and local levels, for NGOs, trade unions and other related organisations, and also engages in research, consultancy and policy advice.

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Browsing by Author "Alatinga, Kennedy A."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Development policy planning in Ghana: The case of health care provision
    (European Scientific Institute, 2014) Alatinga, Kennedy A.; Williams, John J.
    This paper examines the historical development of health policy in Ghana within the framework of financial, geographical accessibility and the availability of health care. Historically, health policy has been urban biased, and largely focused on financial accessibility. Even Nkrumah's free health care policy could not adequately address the problem of inadequate health professionals and facilities in the rural areas.The study also established that poverty is also largely a rural phenomenon.The poor benefit less from the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). This situation makes the NHIS lack social equity, the very reason for its being. We recommend that government should expand health facilities in the rural areas, and introduce attractive incentive packages to attract and retain health professionals in such areas. There is an urgent need for rigorous criteria to be developed by the NHIS to identify the very poor for health insurance premium exemptions.
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    Does membership in mutual health insurance guarantee quality health care? Some evidence from Ghana
    (EJBSS, 2012) Alatinga, Kennedy A.
    Access to health care and quality of health care are inextricably linked. Not merely is access to health care important, but also its quality: hence the apparent increasing demands for health care services where they are perceived by citizens to be offering quality services. The inverse situation also seems to exist, that is, when health systems are perceived to deliver health services that are of 'poor' quality, attendances at such facilities tend to be low. In light of this, this study seeks to examine the nascent National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana (NHIS) and how the NHIS addresses the issue of quality health care delivery for its patients. Using mixed methods research; focus group discussions and household surveys, the study compares two groups (insured and non-insured) with respect to the quality of health each group receives in attempt to providing reliable information to policy and decision-makers about the areas that need attention for improvement in quality of healthcare in the Kassena-Nankana District in Northern Ghana. While the household survey results do not establish any difference in the quality of health received by either the insured or uninsured, findings from the FGDs strongly suggest that the uninsured received better quality care than the insured. These findings provide a fertile ground for policy action. It is thus, recommended amongst other things, that health authorities investigate further alleged illegal extortions of monies by some nurses from uninsured patients.
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    Mixed methods research for health policy development in Africa: The case of identifying very poor households for health insurance premium exemptions in Ghana
    (SAGE, 2019) Alatinga, Kennedy A.; Williams, John J.
    Despite the utility of applying mixed methods research to understand complex phenomenon, few studies have applied this approach to health policy and in Africa. This article illustrates the application of mixed methods research to inform health policy in Ghana with the intent of complementarity. Through an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design involving 24 focus group interviews and 417 household surveys, we developed criteria for identifying very poor households for health insurance premium exemptions in Ghana. The qualitative procedures identified communities’ concerns regarding being very poor: food insecurity, lack of seeds to sow, compromised access to education, financial insecurity, and status as unemployed widows with children. The survey findings illustrated the distribution and predictors of poverty in the Kassena-Nankana District. Based on these findings, the authors proposed a four-question survey for the Kassena-Nankana District Health Insurance Scheme to administer to determine extreme poverty. Based on these recommendations, the local government has a unique opportunity to increase the very poor’s access to and utilization of health care services.
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    Towards universal health coverage: Exploring the determinants of household enrolment into National Health Insurance in the Kassena Nankana District, Ghana
    (Faculty of Integrated Development Studies, University for Development studies, 2015) Williams, John J.; Alatinga, Kennedy A.
    This study investigates the determinants of household participation in National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the Kassena-Nankana District in Ghana. In order to achieve this purpose, a cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 417 randomly selected household heads. The results established that the NHIS is making incremental progress towards achieving universal health coverage because majority (67%) of the sampled population was enrolled in the NHIS. However, further analysis of the data highlighted both the challenge of achieving equity of participation in health insurance and the yawning financial barriers to accessing health care for poor households and those employed in the informal sector. For example, majority (77%) of uninsured households indicated that they were not enrolled in the NHIS because they could not afford the cost of insurance premiums. The research findings showed that income, socio-economic status (SES), formal employment, educational status, and gender amongst others, significantly determine household enrolment in health insurance. In order to increase the enrolment of the poor in the NHIS, and of achieving universal health coverage, the authors recommend that the government considers using payroll deductions to finance the health care needs of all formal sector employees while financing the health care of the rest of the population using tax revenues. It is also recommeded that the NHIS considers making the payment of insurance premium flexible, such as allowing housholds to pay in installments or in kind.