Employers under obligation to pay medical expenses of employees – SIC
Employers are under obligation as mandated in the Workmen’s Compensation Act to pay medical expenses of employees in respect of the injury sustained in the cause of duty, Mr. Faris Attrickie, the General Manager and Technical Operations of the SIC Insurance Company PLC, has said.
The Act also makes provision for compensation for permanent total incapacity, where permanent total incapacity results from the injury the amount of compensation shall be a sum of money equal to 96 months’ earnings.
Mr Attrickie stated this at the 16 edition of the monthly Ghana News Agency Stakeholder Engagement and Workers’ Appreciation Day.”
He explained that in the case of injury not specified; a percentage of the compensation would have been payable in the case of permanent total incapacity and proportionate to the loss of earning capacity permanently caused by the injury.
On compensation for permanent partial incapacity, Mr Attrickie said where permanent partial incapacity results from the injury, the amount of compensation shall be, in the case of an injury specified, a percentage of the compensation which would have been payable in the case of permanent total incapacity.
“Where more injuries than one is caused by the same accident, the amount of compensation payable under this section shall be aggregated but shall not exceed the amount which would have been payable if permanent total incapacity had resulted from the injuries,” Mr Attrickie noted.
Touching on the New Insurance Act, Act 1061 of 2021, Section 216, Mr Attrickie tasked professional bodies to study the act, stressing that the medical institution needs to have professional indemnity cover, and if they do not, the owner or employer could be summarily convicted to a fine or a term of imprisonment.
He said that Professional Indemnity has become compulsory through the new insurance Act, which replaced Act 726 of 2006, “now this new insurance act made it compulsory for any employer to ensure that every employee should come under the professional indemnity cover and an employer that fails to do so, if found guilty will be fined or made to serve a term of imprisonment or both.
“The new Act 1061 of 2021 made motor third party insurance and the works men compensation insurance also compulsory,” he said.
Mr Attrickie stressed the need for a united front to reach out to all sectors of society to discuss insurance and social development issues.
He called on the insurance companies to cooperate with the GNA to educate society about their rights to ensure that employers do not joke with their lives.