MOH organises policy dialogue on social welfare programmes

A policy dialogue on targeting the poor for social welfare programmes including the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has been held in Accra with a call for a revision of the poverty maps to achieve equity at all levels in the country.

The Dialogue, which was organized by the Ministry of Health (MOH) in collaboration with the Planning Department of the School of Public Health, sought to review comparative country experiences of the NHIS and analyse the merits to Ghana.

Dr Sam Adjei, Chief Executive Officer at Centre for Health and Social Services, said it was necessary to regularly update the poverty map at National, Regional and Districts levels in the country to help in targeting the poor to benefit from all social welfare programmes.

He indicated that, even though government through the induction of the NHIS had breached the gap between the rich and the poor, identifying those who are considered poor in the society had become a major challenge.

According to him, the National Health Insurance Authority would now collaborate more with the Department of Social Welfare to identify the poor in the various communities for access to the services of the NHIS.

Participants at the meeting proposed that in testing to target the poor in the country to benefit from social welfare programmes, the means testing and the proxy means testing methods should be employed to achieve equity.**