NHIA takes 'Operation Storm' to Bolgatanga township

The Bolgatanga Municipal Office of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has stormed the Bolgatanga township, market and lorry stations to sensitise traders, drivers and members of the public on the “MyNHIS” software application.

The application, launched in November 2022 to eliminate the long queues often seen at National Health Insurance offices across the country, could be downloaded from Apple or Google Play Store for use by members of the public with their Ghana cards.

Clad in official T-shirts of the Authority in a float, the Municipal officers, supported by their colleagues from the Regional and surrounding District offices, moved into shops to sensitise traders, and distributed National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) subscriber handbooks to them.

The officials also took time to engage pedestrians and explained to them how to link their NHIS cards to their Ghana cards, and offered the opportunity for members of the public to enrol onto the scheme and renew their invalid cards at a designated set-up point at the main lorry station.

Roland Abane Ayine, the Bolgatanga Municipal Manager of the Authority, told journalists during the exercise that it was the desire of the NHIA to enrol everyone onto the scheme to benefit from its application and offers.

He said the Authority’s message was basically on the application, which allowed members of the public to link their Ghana card to the NHIS card via the short code *929#.

“The message is on the MyNHIS App, the *929# linking the Ghana card to the health insurance card and, more importantly, the automatic renewal feature in the *929#, where clients are allowed to link their NHIS numbers to their Mobile Money numbers for renewal prompts so they can consent to it before the card is renewed,” he said.

Ayine said some people only realised they had invalid NHIS cards in emergencies, owing to the hitherto non-existent automatic renewal feature, “With this automatic renewal feature, forgetfulness to validate NHIS cards will be a thing of the past.

“We are targeting over a thousand people. So far, we have renewed a lot of cards, and from the way we are moving around, we believe that by the end of the day, we will hit the target,” the Municipal Manager noted.

Some members of the public in random interviews with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the exercise expressed excitement about the Authority’s initiative and recalled days of long queues at offices of the Authority, especially at the Bolgatanga Municipal Office, just to renew their cards, which affected their daily activities.

Cynthia Anafo, who had just renewed her card, told the GNA that the Authority’s initiative to set up a registration and renewal point as part of the “Operation Storm” made it simple and much easier for her to renew her card.

She thanked officials of the Authority and called for more such initiatives and engagements with members of the public.