Tema, April 9, GNA – The Tema District Office of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is seeking the support of the Ghana News Agency (GNA) to enhance public education on its activities to improve enrolment onto the Scheme.
Mrs Linda Martey-Acquah, the Manager of the Tema Office of the NHIS, during an engagement with the Tema Regional Office of the GNA, expressed the importance of the media, especially the Agency’s wide coverage, to ensure public understanding of its activities to achieve universal health insurance coverage.
She encouraged the public to take advantage of its programmes to get themselves insured to avoid any emergencies.
Mrs Martey-Acquah said to widen enrollment onto the Scheme, the office had started a programme to enroll beneficiaries of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) in Tema, in collaboration with the Social Welfare and Community Development under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.
She said the free registration exercise commenced with those in Tema East while that for Tema West was ongoing at Sakumono, adding that they had to produce their LEAP identification numbers as a proof.
She expressed the hope that the wide reach of the GNA would help project the works of the NHIA to achieve its agenda of attaining universal health insurance coverage for Ghanaians.
Mr Francis Ameyibor, the Tema Regional Manager of the GNA, expressed happiness about the NHIS’ confidence in the Agency and said it was ready to support the Scheme to meet its common goal of contributing to the development of the country by ensuring a healthy populace.
He said the GNA would facilitate measures by the Scheme to ensure public appreciation of its activities to achieve its mandate.
Mr Ameyibor said financial constraints made it difficult for some institutions to engage the media to advertise their activities through enhanced public education, however, “money should not hinder news coverage, especially those that border on health, security, and social intervention programmes”.
He said the GNA had created a proactive platform to enable state and non-state organisations to engage the public to get the needed feedback on their activities.
“We are providing a two-way communication channel to the NHIA: serve as medium for it to reach out to the public and also take feedback from the public to the Authority. We must work in the interest of the public whom we serve,” he said.
GNA