Bernard Govina, Ketu South Municipal Manager, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has emphasised the need for persons living in the country particularly in Ketu South to be valid NHIS cardholders.

He said all persons needed to have the card to enable them to access “healthcare especially during the Coronavirus pandemic.”

Mr Govina who was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said the Municipal Office was recording low patronage for both new registrants and renewal of membership and feared that could defeat the Scheme’s purpose of achieving universal health coverage (UHC) for all and consequently endanger lives of other people.

“A lot of Ketu South residents are still not registered under the Scheme and those who are even registered do not hold valid cards. What this means is that majority of these people may not access health care should they have health conditions for lack of money and we know the danger in that for everyone during this pandemic period.”

The Municipal Scheme Manager said though the Scheme was a social intervention programme introduced by the government in 2003 to provide equitable access and financial coverage for basic health care services to persons resident in the country, one ought to be an active member to benefit.

He, therefore, encouraged non-members to either visit Agbozume or Denu main offices to be registered, while entreating those with expired cards to either visit any of the offices for renewal or use their mobile phones to renew them by “using the renewal code *929#.”

The Ketu South Municipal NHIS ranked the second-best performed Scheme in the Volta Region in 2019 for exceeding its annual membership target of 74,018 now resetting a target of 99,025 for the 2020.