National Health Insurance patronage increases

Elmina, Feb. 4, GNA - Dr. Yaw Ofori-Yeboah, the Municipal Director o= f the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem Health Directorate, has said even though patronage of the National Health Insurance Scheme had increased from 53% in 2008 to 71% in 2009 the delay in paying claims to health facilities was worrying.

He said the NHIS Secretariat owed some health facilities GH¢220,0= 00 in the Municipality and this was affecting the efficient running of those facilities. He appealed to the authorities of the Scheme to promptly pay all clai= ms to ensure its sustainability.

Dr. Ofori-Yeboah, who said this at the health directorate's annual=

review performance at Elmina, urged the Municipal Assembly to compliment efforts of the health directorate to ensure quality health care for all b= y helping it to attract and retain more health personnel to the area. He said the directorate chalked a lot of successes last year and am= ong them was that no maternal death was recorded during the year under review=

due to interventions such as outreach and educational programmes put in place to educate expectant mothers and home visits carried out by health personnel to encourage them to attend anti-natal clinics.

Still births had been a source of worry to the directorate but it reduced to 17 from 26 in 2008 and that an ambulance service being run by the directorate accounted for the successes chalked as life threatening obstetrics and trauma cases sometimes from remote areas were transported early and were promptly attended to. Dr. Ofori-Yeboah said teenage pregnancy, which is a major problem in=

the district, also decreased to 13.1% in 2009 as compared to 17.4% in 200= 8 and explained that schools outreach programmes to educate school children= on adolescent reproductive health and the effects of teenage pregnancy had b= een very beneficial. On tuberculosis, he said 97.8% cure rate was achieved last year wh= ile none of the patients defaulted in taking their drugs or for check-ups and=

urged all stakeholders to continue to play their roles effectively to ens= ure eradication of the disease.

Dr. Ofori-Yeboah said challenges facing the directorate included encroachment on its lands at Elmina, Agona and Kissi by developers and called on the Municipal Assembly to assist in retrieving the lands and to=

stop activities of encroachers. Alhaji Ibrahim Yahaya, Medical Assistant at the Elmina Health Cent= re, said of the 33,606 people attended to last year, malaria still leads the 10 top diseases with 19,430 cases as against 12,838 in 2008, an increase of 43%, followed by anaemia, skin diseases, diarrhoea, hypertension, typhoid=

fever and chicken pox.

To help address teenage pregnancy with its attendant health implications an adolescent friendly unit has been established to educate and offer counselling to the youth in addition to the school health programme= .. He said other cases that were given more attention to have them reduced further included malnutrition among children, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculo= sis and Hypertension. Alhaji Yahaya re-echoed calls on the NHIS secretariat to release claims on time to enable them improve service delivery to the satisfactio= n of all. The Deputy Coordinating Director, Mr Ben Eghan Mensah, said the Assembly had formed a committee to investigate and retrieve parcels of la= nd belonging to the health directorate that had been encroached upon. Mr. Mensah said the Assembly was working towards upgrading the Elmi= na Health Centre into a polyclinic.