Farmers in the Upper East Region, have expressed great concern about the withdrawal of NHIS facilities by the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) and called on government to, as a matter of urgency, intervene to resolve the issue.

The farmers who made the call at Garu in the Garu-Tempane District of the Upper East Region during an interactive workshop on 'Access to Health Care', organized by the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), observed that there would be much pressure on government health facilities if the situation was not reversed.

It would be recalled that the Board of Trustees of CHAG, in a public notice published in the Daily Graphic's edition some few days ago, explained that they had been forced to take that decision due to the inability of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to pay CHAG health facilities outstanding bills and economic tariffs for services rendered.

The interactive workshop on Access to Health Care, sponsored by STAR-GHANA, which attracted workers of the Ghana Health Service, National Health Insurance Providers, and other health providers, was to create a platform for the stakeholders to see how quality and access to health services could be provided to the farmers to empower them to produce more.

The National Secretary of PFAG, Mr John Akaribo, appealed to health providers to treat patients with due respect, particularly illiterate farmers and pregnant women. “Food is the primary first AID DRUG .farmers need to be healthy enough to produce to feed the Ghanaian populace. Therefore the health of the farmer should not be taken for granted,” the National Secretary stressed.

He said the objectives of PFAG were to bring farmers and health providers, especially the National Health Insurance Providers, together, to dialogue and find solutions to mitigate problems confronting the health providers and their clients, that is, the farmers.

Mr Akaribo who is also the Regional Focal Person of the PFAG, called on farmers to fully co-operate with Health Service Providers in accessing quality health care, and entreated them to avoid impersonation of the National Health Insurance Scheme and registration of non-Ghanaians, so as to help reduce the heavy bills of the scheme.

The District Director of Health, Madam Cecilia Samata Azabu, called on the communities to report any abuse or unprofessional attitude of any health personnel within the District to the nearest Health Management Team, for redress, and urged patients to seek professional health services at all times and desist from consulting quack doctors.

The Program Officer of PFAG, Mr. Charles Nyaaba , who took the participants through the Patients-Charter, said the project which is supported by STAR- Ghana, will soon come out with Farmers Health Manual, as a guide for them to know their rights and responsibilities when seeking health care services.

The District Co-ordinating Director of the Garu-Tempane District, Mr Musah Abubakari, indicated that the Assembly had put in place a plan to open up all roads in the communities for easy movement and access to all the sub- health centres in the district.