In order to bring critical, life saving information within the reach of its subscribers across the country, Glo Mobile has introduced a value-adding service, Medicare on its network.

The SMS-based service, which was launched in Accra yesterday, is targeted at those who need useful information and tips on key medical and life-enhancing conditions on the go.

The information has been tailored to address prevailing health challenges common today. The service will be free for the first one month but will attract a monthly subscription fee of GHc 1 thereafter.

“Glo’s Medicare will help subscribers access diverse information that helps improve healthy lifestyles and promote better health management among our subscribers”, said Mr Akeem Kazeem, the Head of Business of at Glo Mobile Ghana.

Mr Kazeem said the introduction of Medicare has been inspired by the belief that if people have the right kind of information, they can easily handle most health challenges they encounter in their daily lives.

“Unlike decades ago, a greater number of younger people are being diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, hypertension, high Cholesterol and many other diseases which in turn lead to death. Lifestyles including food, mental health, and hormonal imbalance have to be corrected to avoid such risks.

“Our Medicare service helps you out by providing easy tips to diagnose and prevent the risk of some of the life threatening diseases.

This service is available for Glo subscribers all over the country across 19 health related categories, like Diabetes, Hypertension, Cholesterol, Pregnancy, Malaria etc and subscribers can register for one or more of these categories to receive a host of medical and health related tips on symptoms, diets, exercises etc”, Kazeem added.

Each category has a keyword and, customers can subscribe by sending the corresponding keyword as a text message or USSD call to the toll free number 34001. To know all the categories available for subscription, all a subscriber needs to do is to text the keyword, MENU to 34001.

The subscription is priced at GHc1 per month and valid for for 30 days, during which period, 2 tips daily per any chosen category are sent via SMS.