CHIEF PAYS NHIS FEES FOR HIS PEOPLE (PAGE 29)

Story: George Ernest Asare, Kumasi

THE residents of Nsema, a suburb of Kumasi, last Friday realised their dream of getting access to quality health care when their chief, Nana Nkansa Boadu Ayeboafo, offered to pay GH¢15,000 as their health insurance premium for the year.
The gesture by the chief was his contribution to make the residents healthy to enable them to engage in productive ventures to adequately cater for their dependants and also contribute to sustainable national development.
Prior to their registration on Friday, April 11, 2008, many of the residents had not registered to join the Mutual Health Insurance Scheme (MHIS) and the few who had registered had also not renewed their insurance after it expired.
Initially, Nana Boadu Ayeboafo intended to pay the premium of the aged, widows and single parents in the community, but when he realised that majority of them had not registered to join the scheme, he directed the management of the Bantama Sub-Mutual Insurance Scheme which was registering the beneficiaries to extend the gesture to the entire Nsema community.
When the Daily Graphic visited the registration centre at the chief’s palace at Nsema, the youth, who constituted the greater percentage of the community, were in a long queue jostling one another to get their pictures taken and to fill documents to join the scheme.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Nana Boadu Ayeboafo said, “I took that decision of sponsoring the registration of the entire Nsema community when I realised that almost all of them do not benefit from the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) because of financial difficulties.
“Initially I wanted to support only the aged, widows and single parents to join the scheme to enable them to access quality health care anytime they fall sick, but later I got to know that almost the entire community, including the youth, had not registered, hence my decision to pay for everybody at Nsema.”
He noted that he had not got a seal on the total amount of money he was using to register the entire community, adding, “But I think that GH¢15,000 will be enough to pay for the premium of the Nsema community. If business thrives, I will renew it for them next year.”
He said to enhance their registration, he contacted the Regional Manager of the National Health Insurance Authority, Mrs Leticia Osei Poku, who directed the scheme manager of the Bantama sub-metro to move to Nsema to register the entire community.
“This is my contribution to make the people of Nsema healthy to enable them to embark on productive ventures,” he noted.
Nana Boadu Ayeboafo expressed concern over the lackadaisical attitude of some of the residents towards issues of national importance, saying it was such an attitude that had prevented some of them from joining the mutual health scheme.
“But they are able to get money to buy expensive cloths to attend funerals every weekend,” he lamented.
For her part, Mrs Osei Poku commended Nana Boadu Ayeboafo for his gesture, saying, “This is the first time a chief has spent so much to pay for the premium of an entire community for them to join the health insurance scheme.”
She pointed out that since the health insurance scheme played a key role in productivity, chiefs should support the people in their communities who faced financial difficulties in paying their premium to enable them to 0access quality health delivery.
“People should not get sick before they pay their premiums because it could cost them their lives,” she advised.