NHIS registers 1.5 million vunerable persons
The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has registered 1,500,324 vulnerable persons in the country.
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The scheme is targeting 2.2 million indigents who 8.4 per cent of the population.
The acting Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr Nathaniel Otoo, made this known when he met with the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), Nana Oye Lithur, in Accra last Wednesday.
According to the 2010 Housing and Population Census, 8.4 per cent of the country’s population are vulnerable, and according to Mr Otoo, the scheme was poised to do more in terms of registering the vulnerable as well as poor people in society.
To this end, he said the scheme in collaboration with the Gender Ministry had registered almost a 100 per cent of all beneficiaries of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP).
Statistics
So far, 90,785 household beneficiaries from 144 districts have been enrolled onto the LEAP programme since it was started in 2008 with 1,645 households from 21 districts.
The ministry targets 150,000 households by the middle of the year and 200,000 households throughout the country by the end of the year.
Responding to a request by the Gender Minister, Mr Otoo promised that the scheme would replace all missing NHIS cards of the victims of the June 3, 2015 flood and fire disaster.
He also gave the assurance that the scheme was working at ensuring that all prisoners in the country were registered.
Collaboration
Nana Oye Lithur who was in the meeting with her two deputies, Ms Dela Sowah and Mr Joseph Alexander Ackon, earlier commended the NHIA boss for his interest in issues of the vulnerable and the poor.
She said, among other things, that her ministry in 2010 signed a memorandum of understanding with the NHIS to ensure that all LEAP beneficiaries were enrolled onto the scheme.
She said so far 6,500 elderly persons had been registered and also commended the NHIS for enrolling them onto the scheme.
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