Use HIPC funds for Health Insurance - Health Director

Wa, July 6, GNA - Dr Fulgence Sangber-Dery, Wa Municipal Director of Health Services on Friday suggested to the government to use part of the HIPC fund as start up capital for the Health Insurance Scheme in poor communities. He said the high degree of poverty in these communities was a major challenge to the success of the scheme and therefore needed government intervention.

Dr Sangber-Dery made the suggestion when he briefed District Chief Executives (DCEs) in the Upper West Region on the Mutual Health Insurance Scheme during their monthly meeting at Wa. The meeting served as a forum for the DCEs to discuss their development plans and projects implementation and share ideas in areas of success. Members of the Wa District Assembly and some heads of the decentralised departments also attended the meeting.

Dr Sangber-Dery said there was the need to remove all forms of suspicion and mistrust from the minds of the people before the scheme took off. "Some communities view health insurance programme with suspicion as a result of past experiences of the mismanagement of contributions for development projects by people who were entrusted with resources," he observed.

He called for a greater sensitisation of the people on the insurance programme at all levels to attract a larger number of people to make the premium lower and affordable to the people. Mr Sahanun Mogtari, Upper West Regional Minister advised the DCEs not to shy away from enforcing regulations and bye-laws without fear or favour. He observed that their reluctance to punish wrong doers had led to widespread indiscipline with people depositing solid waste at unauthorised places and erecting unauthorised structures all over the town.

Mr Mogtari urged the assembly members to organise their electoral areas towards the implementation of the health insurance scheme. He expressed regret that most Ghanaians often looked more to what they could gain from new programmes than what they could offer to make it succeed. The Regional Minister told the people to remain united and focused instead of quarrelling over the location of new district capitals. Wa and Sissala districts are among the 45 districts in the region, which had been selected nationwide for the implementation of the pilot insurance scheme. Mr Godfred Bayong Tangu, Wa District Chief Executive in a welcoming address said the Assembly had exceeded its revenue target by 29 per cent last year. Out of a targeted 753,843,000 cedis, it collected 969,797,000 cedis. He said as at April this year, however, only 336,679,000 cedis had been realised out of a projected 1.5 billion cedis.