Community Health Volunteers receive NHIS training

A total of 45 community health volunteers from nine communities in the Central Gonja District of the Northern Region, have been trained to assist the most vulnerable to access the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) towards improving their health statuses.

The participants were given training on the Scheme’s registration process and categories, price list for the different registration groups, waiting period and registration under the free maternal care.

The workshop was organised by a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGO), who focus on the development of the Western Corridor Area of the Northern Region, with funding from STAR Ghana, a multi-donor pooled organisation.

Mr Joseph Shaibu Mumuni, the President of Kathipo Community Development, a Buipe based NGO, said the project’s objectives among others, was to ensure that pregnant women, children under 18, persons with disabilities and the aged, had access to the services of the scheme and the Community Health Programme and Service compounds.

He suggested that measures should be put in place by the scheme managers to make a special concession for the registration of vulnerable groups.

Mr Abdul Razak Brima, the Central Gonja District NHIS Manager, said the scheme was one of the most effective tools that could help reduce poverty and improve health care delivery at all levels.

Some of the participants expressed dissatisfaction about the inability of some of the personnel who register them to capture their photographs on the identity cards, a development, which could deny them access to healthcare services, which required intended beneficiaries to produce photo ID cards.