Bolgatanga, Jan 14, GNA – Mr Kasimu Abudulai, Upper East Acting Regional Director of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) says, successful implementation and merging of the Ghana card and National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards will reduce cost of production in the cards by the Authority.
He said apart from the benefits, it would reduce burden of carrying many identity cards on the bearers and therefore when the two cards are merged, would save the country huge sums of money used in the purchase of equipment , consumables as well as cost of producing the cards.
“We spend a lot in buying the NHIS cards, printers, toners and time printing the cards and we also spend a lot on electricity so once the Ghana Card is a national policy that all Ghanaians must have to solve all ID problems, NHIA is working closely with the National Identification Authority to have a slot for capture of NHIA data on the Ghana card”. He said.
Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Abudulai explained that all service providers were also trained on the linkage process to provide health services to clients using the Ghana Card and urged members of the public to endeavour to link their cards.
The in Acting Director however indicated that the rate of linkage of the cards had been low especially in the Upper East Region and attributed the situation to high illiteracy rate among the residents particularly in the rural areas, adding “sometimes our staff have to go out and help people to do the linkage.”
The Acting Regional Director noted that the production of NHIS cards would fade gradually except for those who were not qualified to acquire the Ghana Card and explained that new people who were yet to be enrolled unto the NHIS but already had the Ghana Card would not be issued the NHIS card.
He said the Authority was poised to up its drive to ensure that many people get enrolled unto the system, renew their cards and link them with the Ghana Cards to take advantage of the enormous benefits of the package.
This, he said, would help contribute to attaining the Universal Health Coverage agenda of the country and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals particularly goal three which puts emphasis on access to quality health care by 2030.
He encouraged Ghanaians to use the short code *929# to access all the online services of the Authority and added, “you can renew your card three months to expiry, you do not need to wait for it to expire before you renew it.”
Mr Abudulai indicated that as at November 30, 2021, 932,149 cards were active representing about 72 percent of the 1.3 million people in the region and was the third highest among the 16 regions.
Mr Abudulai admonished the public to report any illegal charges to the Authority for the necessary investigation and action.
He also explained that office accommodation had been a major problem facing the authority in many of its operational districts and appealed to the District Assemblies to assist the Authority with decent places to improve on their work.
GNA