Financial access to healthcare among persons with disabilities in the Kumasi metropolis, Ghana

Purpose: According to the World Health Organisation, 10% to 15% of the population of every developing country lives with disability. This amounts to about 2.4 - 3.6 million Ghanaians with disability. Since their contribution is important for the development of the country, this study aimed to assess the financial access to healthcare among persons with disabilities in the Kumasi Metropolis of Ghana.

Methods: A cross-sectional study, involving administration of a semi-structured questionnaire, was conducted among persons with all kinds of disabilities (physically challenged, hearing and visually impaired) in the Kumasi Metropolis. Multi-stage sampling was used to randomly select 255 persons with disabilities from 5 clusters of communities - Oforikrom, Subin, Asewase, Tafo and Asokwa. Data analysis involved descriptive and analytical statistics at 95% CI using SPSS software version 20.

Results: There were more male than female participants, nearly one-third of them had no formal education and 28.6% were unemployed. The average monthly expenditure on healthcare was GHC 21.46 (USD 6.0) which constituted 9.8% of the respondents’ income. Factors such as age, gender, disability type, education, employment, and whether or not they stayed with family members had significant bearing on the average monthly expenses on healthcare (p<0.05). Transportation cost, the travel distance to facilities, as well as the regular sources of payment for healthcare, had significant relationship with access to healthcare (p<0.05). Although about 63.5% of the respondents used the National Health Insurance Scheme as the regular source of payment for healthcare, 94.1% reported that sources of payment did not cover all their expenses and equipment.

Conclusion: Financial access to healthcare remains a major challenge for persons with disabilities. Measures to finance all healthcare expenses of persons with disabilities are urgently needed to improve their access to healthcare.