Government should sustain NHIS – Awutu-Effutu Premium holders

A group of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) premium holders in the Awutu-Effutu-Senya administrative area of the Central Region have appealed to the government to ensure the sustenance of the policy.

The government, the group said, could do this by effectively strengthening the financial base of the NHIS to enable the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) defray claims of NHIS service providers in good time.

Mr Joseph Owusu-Kwarteng, a spokesman for the group who made the call at Winneba on Friday, praised the government for the encouragement it had been offering the management of the NHIA over the past five years, in its efforts at transforming the current national health delivery system.

Mr Owusu-Kwarteng also appealed to the general public to see the NHIS as one of the most important social interventions the nation has witnessed and should cooperate with government to maintain and develop it.

“What the citizenry should realise is that the system, being a new thing, would have to go through a lot of challenges before it can find its feet properly on the ground in all aspects of its operations,” the spokesman said.

He said investigations the group had conducted clearly shows that since the policy was introduced over seven years ago, infant and maternal mortality rate in the operational area of the Awutu-Effutu-Senya has reduced drastically.

Mr Owusu-Kwarteng commended Mr Sylvester A. Mensah, the current Chief Executive Officer of the NHIA and his management team for putting effective mechanisms to check administrative, financial, and other bottlenecks in the system and hoped they would be maintained to do more to make the policy one of the best in the world.

The spokesman urged the government, especially the President, to ignore agitations by some Ghanaians to terminate the appointment of the NHIA Chief Executive Officer.