Donkorkrom (E/R), July 20, GNA - The Second Annual General Meeting of the Afram Plains District Health Insurance Scheme on Wednesday decided to charge registration fees of 5,000 cedis for children under 18 years.
The meeting also decided to charge a minimum renewal subscription fees of 90,000 cedis for old members and 100, 000 cedis for new members. The introduction of the minimum fees for the under 18 years was to help raise revenue to sustain the scheme.
Under the L.I. establishing the scheme, children under 18 years, indigents, people above 70 years, SSNIT contributors and SSNIT pensioners were exempted from paying subscription fees.
Speaking at the meeting, the Manager of the Scheme, Mr Daniel Larbi Donkor said between January and June this year, 14,336 out of the 29,249 registered members attended health facilities in the District costing the scheme over 991 million cedis, while the scheme was able to collect a total premium of 538 million cedis for the period.
Mr Donkor said currently the scheme was indebted to its service providers.
He said out of the 29,249 registered members, only 7,283 adults paid their subscription, the rest having fallen within the exemption list.
Mr Godfred Sefa Boateng of the Eastern Regional Health Insurance Secretariat suggested the use of facility attendance cards to check the high utilization rate.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Dr Augustine Ankuvie expressed his concern about the inability of the scheme to provide the needed service to people on the Islands and had to wait for periodic visits by Ghana Health Service personnel to be able to use their facilities to get to the Islands.