Don't peddle false news about NHIS- Official

Kasoa (C/R), April 17, GNA- Mr Joseph Yaw Owusu-Kwarteng, Public Relations Officer of the Awutu Effutu Senya Mutual Health Insurance Scheme has advised people in the area not to peddle wrong information about the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

Addressing parents and guardians of the children of the Kasoa Pentecost Child Development Centre on aims and objectives of the scheme, Mr Owusu-Kwarteng said it was very important for them to seek the right information from the appropriate quarters of the scheme than to rely on hearsay since such wrong information did not augur well for the promotion of the NHIS.

The meeting was jointly organized by the executive officers of the Child Development Project and leaders of the church to educate parents and guardians of children who are being taken care of by the project. He said it was not correct that the premium of the NHIS which ranges from GHC 7.02 and GHC 48.00 had been increased by the government to GHC 150.00.

He explained that currently the Awutu Effutu Senya Mutual Health Insurance Scheme collects GHC 15.00 as premium and GHC 4.00 as processing fee, adding that, workers of the scheme were prepared to offer the public the best service they deserved to ensure the total attainment of the objectives of the NHIS.

He announced that a new office has been opened at Kasoa in the Electricity Company Area and advised prospective clients as well as old members of the scheme whose identity cards had expired to contact officials at the Kasoa Office for assistance instead of travelling the long distance to Winneba.

Mr Owusu-Kwarteng thanked organizers of the meeting and assured them of management's preparedness to team up with any social organization such as the churches and Muslim religious groups to disseminate the NHIS message to the people at the grassroots. He appealed to churches in the area to embark on intensive environmental and domestic hygiene educational programmes as a way of preventing the outbreak of communicable and other diseases. This way, the PRO said would help make the new health delivery policy cost effective and sustainable at all times.