Accra, May 24, GNA - The Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) on Wednesday donated 50 million cedis to the Ghana Heart Foundation of the Cardiothoracic Centre of the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

The amount was realized from proceeds from a special offering conducted for the Heart Foundation during last year's end-of-year thanksgiving service by the CEPS.

Major-General Richardson Baiden, CEPS Commissioner, who made the donation, said the Service saw it as its social obligation to make life meaningful for the people of Ghana.

He expressed the hope that the CEPS would exceed that amount next year. CEPS makes yearly donations to the Foundation. Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, Chief Executive Officer of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, who received the donation, said he was grateful for the support lent to the Foundation. He promised that whatever donation was made to the Centre would go to patients of the Heart Foundation.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, who is also the President of the Ghana Heart Foundation, cautioned health workers who declined to give the necessary medical care to those with the National Health Insurance Scheme identity cards to desist from the act, saying it jeopardized government's good intentions for Ghanaians.

He said it had been observed that certain health workers in some health institutions were not giving optimum care to NHIS card holders but attended first to those who had the money to pay on the spot. "We have problems with the scheme, we should not do anything to compound the situation."

He called on health workers to give NHIS cardholders the optimum attention they deserved in order that people would have confidence in the scheme.

Earlier, the new Chief Fire Officer of the Ghana Fire Service, Frank Ferkah called on the Commissioner and management staff of CEPS in a move to foster cooperation between both institutions. He stressed that when the security services came together, they could overcome the few deviants in the society and make them law-abiding.