Minister says NHIS is on course

Kete Krachi, March 01, GNA - Mr Samuel Owusu-Adjei, the Deputy Minister of Health, has said figures available to the ministry had shown that the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was on course.

Mr Owusu-Adjei, speaking at the official launch of the Kete-Krachi West District Mutual Health Insurance Scheme (DMHIS), said recent surveys had shown that 119 DMHIS were at the claims management stage. He said about 26 per cent of the Ghanaian population had so far registered with the NHIS and attend hospital. Mr Owusu-Adjei commended the scheme management teams for their efforts in achieving about 90 per cent implementation success as at December last year.

He said despite the success story the Ministry was aware of the many challenges such as the " wait and see" attitude of some people, politicisation of the scheme, inadequate logistics and financial resources that were troubling the managers. Mr Owusu-Adjei assured the managers that the ministry, in collaboration with the National Health Insurance Council (NHIC), was making efforts to resolve the challenges for the scheme to meet this year's target of 50 per cent coverage.

Mr Kofi Dzamesi, the Volta Regional Minister, appealed to the NHIC and the Ministry of Health to make funds available to facilitate the work of the Monitoring Team to ensure maximum success of the scheme. Mr Dzamesi advised the Management Team of the Krachi Mutual Health Scheme not to toy with the scheme through embezzlement of funds or through any nefarious activities to undermine the scheme since it was dear to the government's heart.

Mr Kofi Mensah Demitia, District Chief Executive of Krachi West, said the government had provided 299,150,000.00 cedis to the district as a set up fund

He said the scheme had registered 6,361 contributors with an amount of 44,001,000.oo accumulated from the premium collected.