Children to enjoy free NHIS - Akufo-Addo

Kpedze (V/R), May 16, GNA - Come December 2008, all children will have access to free health care under the National Health Insurance Scheme following a proposal currently before Cabinet.

Nana Addo Danqua Akufo-Addo, the New Patriotic Party Presidential Candidate who announced this on Friday, said children less than 18 years would no longer depend on their parents' membership of the National health Insurance scheme to access health care if the proposal received Cabinet's blessings.

Nana Akufo-Addo hinted this when he met chiefs from the Ho West Constituency at Kpedze at the start of a three-week campaign tour of the Volta region.

He said the current arrangement under, which children less than 18 years accessed health care based on their parents' membership of the NHIS, limited the right of the children to healthy living, growth and development.

Nana Akufo-Addo urged chiefs and opinion leaders in rural communities to encourage their people to register with the scheme wherever they were.

He said the NHIS was meant to among other advantages, ease the trauma people went through whenever they or their dependants fell sick and needed to go to hospital but were cash strapped.