Agona Swedru, Sept. 13, GNA - The Agona Municipal Mutual Health Insurance Scheme paid a total of 733,897 Ghana cedis as claims to 43,262 beneficiaries in 2007 as against 201,013 Ghana cedis to 12,732 patients in 2006.

A total of 100,152 Ghana cedis was collected as premium in 2007 while 24,415 Ghana cedis was bagged in 2006.

Nana Kojo Frempong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Municipal Mutual Health Insurance Scheme announced this at the second Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Scheme at Agona Swedru on Friday adding that a total of 52,806 people benefited in 2007.

He said 32,919 people also paid premium to become full members in 2006, adding that the scheme also received subsidies of 585,664 Ghana cedis from the government in 2007 as against 127,965 in 2006. Nana Frempong expressed concern about the lukewarm attitude of the community committees and urged Assembly members, opinion leaders, chiefs, churches and the Muslim community to spread the good message of the scheme to the people.

The Board Chairman said he was not happy about the unavailability of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) database in the municipality to enable all the workers to enjoy the scheme. He said the situation had compelled majority of the affected workers to pay premium themselves instead of paying from their SSNIT contributions.

Nana Frempong expressed regret about the uncooperative attitude of some health service providers, which had discouraged many people from either renewing their insurance or to register with the scheme. He said the scheme had reduced the premium from 15 Ghana cedis to eight Ghana cedis for registration and from five Ghana cedis to four Ghana cedis for processing of identification cards (ID) to encourage more people to join the scheme.

The Board Chairman observed that the collectors did not put up their best because of the unattractive commission they received. He said the district had therefore been zoned into twenty-two to enable them work effectively to earn more money.

He stated that the scheme had arranged and worked out attractive package as an incentive to the collectors to work effectively to improve the performance of the scheme in the years ahead.

Nana Frempong announced that four health facilities at Agona Swedru, Duakwa, Kwanyako and Upper Bobikuma had been hooked on to the national network for easy accessibility of the beneficiaries. He said the scheme planned to embark on an aggressive marketing strategy to reach every corner of the Agona West Municipality and Agona East District to enable more people to register.

Nana Frempong expressed the hope that the scheme would achieve 65 per cent coverage by the end of 2008 to enable more people to enjoy affordable and quality health care.

He gave the assurance that the scheme would continue the "face-to-face" durbar with its clients and would also step up efforts to have the best working relationship with the health providers to enable the scheme to grow.

Mr Sampson Nyakoh, Scheme Manager said the District Health Insurance Scheme would form an assembly to put in place a constitution that would provide general guidelines for the operations of the scheme in the district. He announced that a new National Health Insurance membership card had been introduced with effect from September 1, 2008, to give the clients the opportunity to access health care. 13 Sept. 08