Presidential staffers to explain gov't programmes

Accra, April 8, GNA - All Mutual Heath Insurance Schemes operating in the country are to be networked by the end of the year, Mr Francis Andoh Agyei, National Co-ordinator of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), has announced.

Scheme-card holders would thus be able to access free health care services in whatever part of the country they might find themselves. There are presently 125 District, Municipal and sub-Metropolitan mutual health insurance schemes established, nationwide.

Mr Agyei was speaking at a public forum held in Nima in Accra as part of an outreach programme initiated by presidential staffers to explain government policies and programmes to the people.

He described the NHIS as the best poverty reduction and pro-poor policy to have been introduced in the country and said so far a total of 4,429,000 Ghanaians had registered with it.

"It is tool for social re-engineering that caters for the poor", he said, adding that, all Ghanaians, particularly, the poor and vulnerable, must therefore take advantage to enrol with the scheme. He said by so doing, they would be shedding off, 95 percent of the disease burden in the country.

Earlier, Mr Andrew Awuni, a Senior Special Aide to the President, said the team was determined to bring the presidency closer to the people by helping to deepen their understanding of government's policies and programmes through public interactions.

He said a lot of good things were happening to the country, which the people must be told, citing, the free ride in metro mass transport buses by school children, the introduction of the Capitation Grant and the Schools Feeding Programme, debt cancellation and the Millennium Challenge Account as examples.

Mr Awuni said these were blessings rolling out to the country and that it was important for every Ghanaian irrespective of opinion or religious belief to feel part of it.

The Greater Accra Metropolitan Director of Education, Mrs Mary Quaye, was on hand to explain the Capitation Grant and the School Feeding Programme to the forum.