Nkoranza (B/A), Sept. 21, GNA - Mr Richard Kwasi Hinneh, Nkoranza District Director of Health Services, has called on opinion leaders in the district to lead the campaign on the importance of the national health insurance scheme to get the people to patronise it. Mr Hinneh was addressing field workers of the scheme at Nkoranza at a one-day orientation workshop on the management of the scheme, organised towards the second registration exercise to be undertaken in October.

He expressed concern about the low registration of members, saying, as at the close of June this year, only 45,749 persons out of the estimated population of 149,554 in the district had registered. "The figure represents a little over 30 per cent of the population, less than last year's record of 78,000 registered persons, representing 46 per cent", the district director stated.

Mr Hinneh appealed to those in leadership positions to educate the people to register with the scheme in order to gain access to quality health delivery.

He told the field workers they were the pivot around which, the success of the scheme evolved and urged them to redouble their efforts to capture more persons in the next registration.

Mr Stephen Opoku Brobbey, manager of the district scheme, asked the field workers to place the registration exercise above their personal activities and to intensify efforts to register more people. He challenged them to be at post at all times to be able to serve all those willing to register.

Mr Brobbey said the second phase of the registration would last for only one month and asked the field workers to embark on a house-to-house campaign to get those, who had not registered to do so. Mr Evans Kwame Osei, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the scheme, expressed regret about the refusal of many people in the district to register with the scheme.

He advised the field workers to exercise patience in the course of their duties and called on the people not to play partisan politics with the scheme "since diseases do not discriminate in attacking people". Mr Samuel Adu-Poku, Public Relations Officer of the scheme, complained of the absence of field workers at their registration centres at some periods, which he said militated against the success of the scheme.