NHIS clients furious over delay in release of ID cards

Wa, Feb. 16, GNA - Clients of the Wa Municipal Health Insurance Sche= me (MHIS) are furious over the undue delay in the issuance of their membersh= ip Identification Cards (IDs).

According to them it sometimes takes them between five to six months= to get their health insurance IDs instead of the usual three months promised= by officials of the Scheme.

They said they had to make do with some temporal ID cards given to t= hem by the Scheme, which they noted were not comfortable to them because they=

often go through lots of stress before service providers could approved o= f their eligibility. They said the delays sometimes even scare some people from coming to=

register with the scheme.

Mr John Bosco Zury, Upper West Regional Manager of the National Heal= th Insurance Authority (NHIA), admitted the concerns of the clients but explained that the delays came because the NHIA was engaged in the proces= s of renewing the contract of the company that produced the cards. He said during the process of the contract renewal, production of ID=

cards was halted, thereby, creating the delays.

He said the contract had been renewed and production had started. The Regional Manager said they received 4,710 ID cards for the Wa Municipal Health Insurance Scheme, 2,013 for Nadowli Scheme and 263 for t= he Jirapa Scheme since production restarted.

He further stressed that production of the ID cards was currently be= ing processed in Accra because of the security features, which were to be put= on them. Mr Zury said despite the delays, clients were not denied access to health care after the proposed three months from the date of registration=

and assured the public that the NHIA was putting measures in place to ens= ure that clients received their cards within a month or two after the date of=

registration. Touching on fraud associated with the temporal ID cards, the Regiona= l Manager said, such issues were very minimal as the Scheme had provided a computer with a card reader to the health facilities to help them check client's eligibility before attending to their health needs. Mr Zury said clients were also required to present both their old ID=

cards and the temporal one whenever they were to visit any health facilit= y to enable them go through the process easily. He stated that the issue was a national one and urged the public to cooperate with the Scheme as steps were being taken to institute mechanis= ms that would address the challenges ensure quality services delivery. 16 Feb. 10