Agona Swedru, Nov 4, GNA - Seventy-six out of the 123 districts in the country, have submitted their budgets to the National Health Insurance (NHI) Council Secretariat for processing and the release of funds for the programme to take off. Mr Samuel Owusu Adjei, Deputy Minister of Health, announced this when he launched the Agona District Mutual Health Insurance Scheme, at Agona Swedru, He urged the Boards of the Scheme to take the programme seriously and to encourage more people to enroll and pay their premiums for the successful implementation of the programme.

Mr Owusu Adjei advised them to be in regular contact said it was important to regularly link with the NHI Secretariat to trash out "knotty issues" and to get support for the implementation of the Scheme. The Deputy Minister who is also MP for Effutu, said the objective of the government was to provide quality services at an affordable cost to make health accessible for the people.

He stated that "health is wealth and an investment, which would yield good returns for improved productivity that will be beneficial to all of us".

Mr Owusu Adjei urged the people in the Agona district irrespective of their political, religious and ethnic affiliation to support and invest in the venture towards the building of a healthy and a happy nation He said the government would promote "pro-poor policies" to protect the vulnerable under the National Health Insurance Scheme. Nana Adjoa Essel Mensah, Member of National Health Insurance Council, stated that 58 schemes were currently operational providing benefit packages to their members, adding that 13 in the Western Region would start very soon.

She stated that 25 schemes in the three northern regions are expected to be operational this month.

The Council Member said by the end of December this year, 123 schemes would be giving benefit packages to their members.

Nana Essel-Mensah stated that the total number of registered members of District Mutual Health Insurance Schemes as at August this year was 2,507,223, representing 12.5 percent of the population of Ghana.

Mr Samuel Obodai and Mr Ben Mensah, MP for Agona West and the District Chief Executive for Agona respectively called on the people who have not registered to do so without delay.