By Yussif Ibrahim
Kumasi, Nov. 18, GNA – As part of its 20th Anniversary celebration, the Ashanti Regional Office of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has organised a blood donation exercise to restock blood banks of key health facilities in the region.
The exercise, held at the Kumasi City Mall, saw staff of the Authority from all its district offices and members of the public voluntarily donating blood to save lives, after being declared eligible to do so.
Professionals from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) were on hand to supervise the exercise, which was on the theme: “20 Years of Care, One Pint at a time: Donate for Life.”
Mr Frank Yeboah, the Director of Procurement and Projects at the NHIA Head Office, who supervised the exercise, said the Authority was targeting at least 300 people to donate in the Ashanti Region.
The availability of blood in health facilities was critical to service delivery, especially during emergencies where patients needed blood to survive.
“It is always a difficult situation to see blood banks being helpless when patients need blood urgently to live, so we decided to organise this exercise as part of our 20th Anniversary celebration,” he said.
He said restocking blood banks through blood donation was a life-saving exercise, which required all eligible citizens to participate for the collective good of the health system.
On how the Scheme had impacted healthcare after 20 years, Mr Yeboah said access to healthcare had tremendously improved over the period, especially among the poor.
He said it was impossible in any programme implementation to satisfy all stakeholders but was convinced that the Scheme, to a large extent, had positively impacted the lives of Ghanaians.
“We are serving people, some may accept it while others may not but we can score ourselves more than 80 per cent in terms of payment of claims and serving our clients,” he added.
More than 17 million Ghanaians are said to be enrolled on the Scheme, with a goal to hit 20 million by the end of 2023.
Mr Kwadwo Dwomoh, the Regional Director, said the blood donation exercise formed part of the corporate social responsibility of the Authority as key stakeholders in health delivery.
He encouraged Ghanaians yet to register to take steps to join the Scheme, stressing that one may not know when the NHIS card could save his or her life.
GNA