22 per cent in Eastern Region registered for NHIS

Kwabeng (E/R), May 30, GNA - About twenty-two per cent of the Eastern Region population of 2,106,696, have registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

The NHIS, which is operating in all the 17 districts in the region, registered 461,255 and also collected a total premium of 10.2 billion cedis.

Mr Yaw Barimah, Eastern Regional Minister, disclosed this at the formal inauguration of the Atiwa District Health Insurance Scheme on Monday at Kwabeng.

The Atiwa District's scheme used to be part of the East Akim District until the separation and the creation of the Atiwa District. According to Mr Barimah, 27 per cent of the paid up members of the scheme in the region were adults, 46 per cent under 18 years, nine per cent above 70 years, 14 per cent are Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contributors, two per cent are SSNIT pensioners and 0.8 per cent are indigents.

He called on the people of Atiwa District to register massively with the scheme in the same way they voted during national elections in order to also record the highest number of people, as they did when it came to national elections.

The Atiwa District Chief Executive, Mr Kwesi Osei-Agyemang, called on all citizens of the area, who had not registered with the scheme to do so and appealed to people engaged to work for the scheme to work with dedication and total commitment to ensure the success of the scheme.

He appealed to chiefs and opinion leaders in the district to ensure environmental cleanliness to help reduce disease outbreak in the area to help sustain the scheme. The Eastern Regional Director of Health Service, Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyirah, called for the institutionalisation of frequent community forums to discuss socio-economic problems, including health issues, to find solutions to them.

He said such programmes could help stimulate fast development of the communities than the current practice, whereby zonal and district heads of departments wrote report on problems in their communities, forwarded them to the regional offices for the reports to be sent to Accra.

Dr Appiah-Denkyirah explained that, such situation left the very affected people out and kept ignorant about problems in their communities.

Mr Godfied Boateng Sefa, the District Scheme Manager said the scheme had registered 16,023 people, representing 11 per cent of the total population of 151,800 of the district and collected a total amount of 561 million cedis.

He said the people, who had registered with the scheme would start benefiting from the scheme with effect from June 1, this year. As part of the programme, Mr Barimah later cut the sod for the construction of 900-million-cedi permanent offices for the scheme at Anyinam.