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The Upper East Regional branch of the National Health Insurance Scheme(NHIS) has launched an initiative aimed at registering extreme poor and vulnerable people in the Bolgatanga and Kassena-Nankana East and West districts.

The move is to enable them have free access to healthcare.

The project, which is being piloted across the country, is an initiative of the National Health Insurance Scheme in partnership with the Ministry of Gender Children and Social protection and funded by Africa Health Markets of Equity(AHME).

The project, expected to last for the next five years, is targeted at registering a total of 25,800 households onto the NHIS with 14,000 households in the Bolgatanga municipality and 11,800 in Kassena-Nankana from March 8. 

Speaking at the launch of the project in Navrongo, Upper East Regional Director of the NHIS, Mr. Sebastian Alagpulinsa, said a group of personnel with support from the social welfare department “will go to all the very poor communities in the beneficiary municipalities with machines containing pre-loaded questions, they will meet and interview heads of households with the questions. As they answer the questions, every question has a score and the total score by the household will indicate whether or not they qualify as a pro-poor vulnerable to be registered.”

He said, “if they qualify, then a voucher is issued to the household for its qualified persons to be registered by the NHIS.”

“Health is a right but not a privilege, and the NHIS seeks to guarantee the health rights of their subscribes and when the project is supported by stakeholders, it will better the lives of the people . The authority as part of its strategy for sustainability, seeks to promote excellent relationships with stakeholders by improving their level of experience on the operations of the scheme to promote effective and responsive health care services to subscribers of the scheme,” Alagpulinsa stated.

Acting Regional Co-coordinating Director of the Bolgatanaga Municipal Assembly, Alhaji Abdulai Abubakar, admonished service providers to exercise restraints when payments are delayed and to remove every barrier that will hinder the enrollment of the poor.