ESTABLISH NHIS OFFICE IN GARU-TEMPANE (PAGE 63, OCT 25, 2010)

The District Chief Executive for Garu-Tempane in the Upper East Region, Mr David Adakudugu, has expressed concern about the long delay in the establishment of a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the district.
According to him, the lack of an independent scheme in the district, which was carved out of the Bawku Municipality over four years ago, had affected enrolment of subscribers unto the scheme.
As a result of the lack of a scheme in the district, residents from the district have to travel to Bawku to subscribe to the NHIS. However, due to the unstable security situation in Bawku, many residents in Garu-Tempane have not had the chance to subscribe to the scheme for fear of their lives .
The DCE who was speaking at the launch of a special mass registration exercise in the district, therefore, called on the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to open a scheme office in the district.
Hundreds of people who have been denied the opportunity to register under the NHIS turned out to partake in the three-day exercise.
Giving an overview of the mass registration exercise, the Regional Manager of the NHIA, Mr Roger Ayine Aposs, said as part of the initiatives to reach out to more Ghanaians who would otherwise not have time to visit the offices to register with the schemes, his outfit had embarked on the exercise to go to the subscribers to ensure that many more people were enrolled.
He said the exercise would also give those whose cards had expired an opportunity to renew their membership to enable them to benefit from efficient and quality health care services.
Mr Aposs gave the assurance that all clients registered during that mass registration period would receive their NHIS ID cards within one month of registration and that a temporal data entry centre had been set up in the regional office of the NHIA to clear all the backlog.
This is to ensure the quick processing of data from the special registration exercise.
He said a similar exercise would be undertaken in the Talensi-Nabdam District, which also did not have a scheme office.
Touching on the performance of the scheme in the region, Mr Aposs said as of October 18, 2010, GH¢1,306,905.69 had been released to schemes to settle their indebtedness with the health service providers.
He said the NHIS coverage in the region had been very encouraging with the Builsa scheme having about 80 per cent coverage.
The Kassena-Nankana District has recorded 78 per cent coverage while the Bongo and Bawku-West districts have covered about 78 and 68 per cent of registration respectively.
He outlined a number of plans earmarked by the NHIA to deal with the problems that confronted the operations of the scheme in the region.
These included regular stakeholders engagement aimed at resolving impasse on tariffs, breach of protocol and training of staff on monitoring and evaluation tools, and providing ICT supports to fast track registration unto the scheme.
The Bawku scheme manager, Mr Mahamadu Akugri, said efforts to increase membership onto the scheme had been continuously hampered by the Bawku conflict, the large coverage area, the lack of commitment by some community mobilisers and low number of suitably qualified personnel, among others.
He appealed to community members to take advantage of the mass registration exercise to get enrolled onto the scheme.
A resident of the area, Mr Abraham Anyande, said due to the delay in the processing of the cards and the distance one had to cover to get registered, most residents in the district had given up on the NHIS.
He, therefore, welcomed the mass registration exercise and urged the scheme operators to find solutions to the difficulties in obtaining their registration cards.