The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has charged the newly constituted Board of Directors of the National Health Insurance Authority(NHIA) to resuscitate the scheme.

He reiterated that the scheme is at a critical state and needs the full expertise of the new Board to improve.

The NHIA is currently saddled with GHS 1.2billion debt to service providers.

Eventhough it announced in May this year that it had disbursed some GHC 60 million among some service providers including the Pharmacy Council and the Christian Health Association of Ghana, these two bodies are still complaining about the huge arrears yet to be settled by the NHIA.

Speaking at the induction of a 17-member Board of the NHIA, Dr. Bawumia said the scheme must be made to benefit the consumer.

“You’re coming to these jobs at a very critical time. The NHIS has faced significant challenge. The Chief Executive knows that everywhere he turns people are chasing him to pay debts. And so you have to of-course manage this better and look at how to ensure that we have better health delivery. And so you have really an onerous responsibility. There is so much we want to do within a limited budget. The NHIS is struggling, but we have to prevent this steady creep towards cash and carry and resuscitate the National Health Insurance Scheme. You’ve got to put together your minds and efforts so that together with government we wok in partnership to rescue this scheme, to resuscitate it, improve it and make it benefit the masses”

Meanwhile the board Chairman, Prof. Yaw Adu-Gyamfi said they will focus on addressing the challenges facing the scheme in the sector.

“We are aware of the challenges facing the authority, not excluding the following- arrears in provider payment, reimbursement, the huge funding gap, the poor claims management which we will deal with, the poor quality assurance, the high administrative cost and the organizational structural problems and some of the operational inefficiencies, all these we will seek to address as a board,” he said.