Some National Health Insurance Card holders in the Upper West Region are said to be using their cards to collect medicines from health facilities for their sick relations who are not beneficiaries of the insurance scheme.
“We have had instances where a family member who is healthy rather goes to a health facility with the symptoms of a sick relative who is not rolled onto the scheme, collects some drugs for free and take them to the sick person at home’.
Mr. Samuel Lobber, Upper West Regional Director of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) who disclosed this in an interview with The Spectator again said that other clients also visited hospitals on regular basis just to collect drugs and keep at home for future use.
He described these practices as unhealthy and affront to quality healthcare delivery in the region and the nation in its entirety.
“I condemn such acts without hesitation as they are inimical to the operations of the NHIA and risky to the health of the clients,” he emphasised.
Over 32,000 persons in the Upper West Region have been registered for free under the National Health Insurance Scheme between January and June, 2021.
These included pregnant women who could not pay for healthcare services, children captured under the School Feeding Programmes, beneficiaries of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme and other indigents who qualified for social services.
The Jirapa Municipality presented the highest number of more than 6,000 registrants whereas the Wa Municipality had the least number of registrants with a little over one thousand.
Explaining the rationale for the inclusion of indigents in the scheme, the Regional Director of the National Health Insurance Authority, Mr Samuel Lobber, said that the Authority was to attain nationwide coverage and to promote the agenda of universal health coverage.
“Although we pat ourselves on the back for the achievement, we are mindful of the need to increase the numbers in areas with less development and evident poverty so that such people are not left out of access to quality healthcare”, he said.
He stated that it was incumbent on the staff to adopt the innovative ways of identifying and reaching out to the target clients for this package and as well get them registered as some of them might be oblivious of the package that was due them.
He explained that even though the NHIA had captured over 77 per cent of the population in the region on the insurance scheme, revenue generation for the authority at Wa was lagging behind owing to the face that over 32,000 of its members were registered for free.
“The region is not doing so well when it comes to revenue mobilisation because of the high numbers of indigents but we should not throw our hands in despair because we can do better and must do better”, he said.
He advised clients to desist from abusing the scheme and ensured that they used the cards only when they genuinely required healthcare.

From Lydia Darlington Fordjour, Wa