The Central Regional Director of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr. Fred Appiah has stressed the need for all stakeholders to work together to sustain the National Health Insurance Scheme.
The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is a social intervention program established by government in 2003 to provide financial access to quality health care for residents in Ghana.
One of the primary objectives of Ghana’s NHIS was to increase the affordability and use of drugs and health services among the poor and most vulnerable populations in particular.
The introduction of the scheme is an attempt by Ghana to implement a national-level, universal health insurance program.
According to Mr. Fred Appiah, sustaining the scheme is the primary means Ghana can realize universal health coverage by 2030.
Hence, he urged all managers of the Authority to be innovative in the way they carry out their jobs and to take advantage of technology’s power to digitize operations.
“Health insurance has been in existence for nineteen years and next year we will be celebrating our 20 years anniversary. We want to sustain it so it calls for total change, total attitudinal change in making sure that we sustain the health insurance.”
He spoke to ATL FM NEWS on the sidelines of a 2-day mid-year review meeting held by the Central Regional Directorate of the National Health Insurance Authority to evaluate its operations and plan strategies for reaching the ultimate objective of achieving universal health coverage by 2030.
According to him, the central region has currently registered 1,140,030 members representing 39.04% of the 2022 projected regional population.
In this regard, he said “we are going to do our best to ensure that by the end of the year we achieve at least 50% of the population. We have a few logistical challenges, human resource challenges but I believe we’ll be able to overcome them to chart a path of getting us the target that we need.”
The review meeting, which began on Wednesday 27 July 2022 on the theme, sustaining the NHIS to achieve Universal health coverage saw in attendance all regional and District managers of the authority as well as representatives from the Ghana health service and other stakeholders including the media.
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Source: Emmanuella Ama Gyamfi/ATLFMNEWS
