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18.03.2005 Health

30% of population registers for health insurance in Sekyere East

18.03.2005 LISTEN
By GNA

Effiduase (Ash), March 18, GNA - Some 56,000 people in the Sekyere East district have registered to be members of the District's Mutual Health Insurance Scheme.

Miss Esther Odoom, the District Manager of the scheme, said the figure represented 30 percent of the total population of the district. She was giving a status report at the launch of the scheme at Effiduase on Thursday.

She said out of the figure, 1,400 people had made full payment of their contributions of 72,000 cedis.

Miss Odoom said so far the total sum of money collected was 150 million cedis and expressed the optimism that about 80,000 residents will be registered by the end of the year.

"By the same period, the scheme will be able to mobilise about one billion cedis from members", she added.

Miss Odoom mentioned accessibility to the Afram Plains portion of the district and transport system as the challenges facing the scheme and called on various stakeholders to help to enable the scheme provide health care services to the clients in the district.

Mr Isaiah Opoku-Boateng, acting Sekyere East District Chief Executive, said currently, the doctor-patient ratio in the district was 1:100,000 instead of 1:40,000 and asked that the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service consider posting additional health staff to the district to take up the challenge.

He said the assembly, in collaboration with some donor agencies and other NGOs, were providing financial and technical support to promote quality health care services in the district.

The Right-Reverend Samuel Agyeman-Kwakye, Methodist Bishop of Effiduase, stressed the need for people to be careful with their habits and other social activities, which may have negative impact on the scheme.

He called on the Ministry of Health to provide an ambulance for effective health delivery in the district.

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