Dr. Oko Boye having a discussion with community members

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye has called on traditional authorities to encourage their community members to enroll onto the National Health Insur­ance Scheme (NHIS) as it has been expanded to cater for more health conditions.

He said the NHIS was the surest means of accessing quality and affordable healthcare services and hence implored Ghanaians, both home and abroad to enroll onto the scheme.

The CEO made this known when he paid a courtesy call on the Par­amount Chief of the Waala Tradi­tional Area at Wa in the Upper West Region on Thursday.

The visit formed part of a three-day working visit to the Region to interact with staff of the NHIA, acquaint himself with some of their operational challenges as well as challenges faced by the scheme and to inspect ongoing NHIS projects in the region.

He was accompanied by some members of the board of Directors of the NHIA as well as management and some staff of the Authority.

Dr Okoe-Boye said even though the scheme was faced with some form of challenges, management was working hard to find lasting solution the problems.

‘’It is very important for every Ghanaian to hold an NHIS card in order to enable them access afford­able healthcare services as citizens, it is your rights and you must take the opportunity’’, he said.

He mentioned that the NHIS had come a long way from the old method of registration and renewal to the current use of technology by citizens to enroll and renew their membership at the comfort of their homes

Government, he stated would continue to invest in the scheme to enable every Ghanaian take good care of their health, adding that the NHIS had not shown any sign of collapsing.

He assured of his outfit’s com­mitment to providing the needed support to ensure that ongoing construction of district NHIA offices were completed before the end of the year.

The Paramount Chief, Naa Fuseini Seidu Pelpuo commended the del­egation for the tour in the region and used the opportunity to appeal to the CEO and the management of the scheme to fast-track work on the construction of the ongoing NHIA district offices in the region.

Highlighting some of the chal­lenges confronting the Scheme in the region, the Chief said the offices lacked adequate staff and infrastructure and was hopeful that these challenges would be ad­dressed as a matter of urgency.

He encouraged the public, par­ticularly residents of Wa to take advantage of the NHIS to get them ­selves covered to avoid medical emergencies in future.

Accompanied by his team, the CEO inspected ongoing projects of the Authority at Issa in the Daffia­ma-Bussie-Issa District and Lawra in the Lawra Municipality which would serve as offices for the Scheme in the two areas.

 From Rafia Abdul Razak,WA