The Bole District Directorate of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has held a float to commemorate this year’s NHIS Week Celebration in Bole on the theme, “NHIS: Using the Ghana Card for Expanding Access to Health Care”.
The float enabled staff of the Scheme to sensitize the residents on linking the NHIS card to the Ghana Card as well as membership renewal using the mobile platform by dialling the short code *929# and following the prompts.
They also created awareness on other operations of the Scheme and took through the principal streets of Bole within the Mango lane, station, junction and ended at the NHIA District Office in Bole.
Hon. Mohammed Shiraz-Deen, Bole District Manager of the NHIA speaking in an interview with Yagbon News said the Authority has rolled out home-based innovations such as NHIS and Ghana Cards linkage, mobile renewal and membership dashboard to give real-time updates of active membership.
He said, a waiver has been put on the one month waiting period and called on the public to go and renew and register for new cards.
However, he explained that, the registration is not free for the public except those within the exempt category including pregnant women.
Mr. Mohammed Shiraz-Deen, noted that even though the Bole District is likely to exceed its annual target, but the scheme is still bedeviled with some challenges.
“We were given 58,000 people to be registered as our target as a District but as we speak we have registered about 54,000 beneficiaries but some of our staff are still undertaking the registration exercise at various centres within the District and when everything is accumulated we shall be exceeding our target”, he said.
He mentioned lack of internet connectivity in some parts of the District as one of their major challenges and this makes it difficult to register individuals in those affected areas.
Also, some health professionals are exhorting monies from some of our clients in the name of renewing their NHIS cards via mobile money for them even though they might not have expired, he bemoaned.
Hon. Mohammed , expressed the hope that the celebration would hype awareness creation, enrollment of new members, membership renewals, monitoring and support visits.
The District Manager of the Authority for the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District, Mr. Mahama Sakara and his staff who joined the Bole Directorate in marking the day also disclosed that the celebration of this year’s NHIS week is focused on how to sensitize the public on the need and how to link their NHIS Cards to their Ghana Cards.
“We are looking at how we can link the NHIS Card to the Ghana Card in expanding access to healthcare. So persons who are 15years and above should try and link their NHIS Cards to their Ghana Cards via *929#, select option 4 and follow the prompts.But in case the information in your NHIS is different from that of your Ghana Card then try and visit the nearest NHIS registration centre”, he entreated.
Source: yagbonradioonline/Issah Zakaria
