Eastern Region NHIA exceeds membership target

The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) exceeded its membership registration target for 2015 in the Eastern Region, from 1,083,457 to 1,169,682 indicating 10 per cent increase over the target.

The Regional Director of NHIA, Alhaji Sampson Abudu, who disclosed this in an interview with the GNA after a meeting to review their activities, said the achievement points to the fact that the NHIS is not collapsing.

He therefore called on the public to shun people who tell them that the NHIS is collapsing and register to have access to quality healthcare.

The Regional Director noted that this year the district schemes are lagging behind in achieving targeted membership drive, and urged the district scheme managers to adopt strategies by working at the weekends and extra hours to meet the target.

He said this year, the region is set to register over 100,000 vulnerable in the region, including the aged, children and destitute and called on the district managers to adopt strategies that would identify such persons to be registered free of charge.

Alhaji Abudu noted that the NHIS was potent social intervention strategy that needs to be managed with utmost professionalism to ensure that people were encouraged to register conveniently.

He also cautioned the district scheme managers to make judicious use of the meagre resources especially to bring efficiency and discipline in their work.