Drobo (B/A), July 16, GNA - The Jaman South Health Insurance Scheme in Brong Ahafo made a net surplus of more than 1.3 billion cedis in 2006 and expects to increase membership by 20 per cent this year. Mr Sylvester Dapaah, chairman of the governing board of the scheme, who disclosed this at the fifth annual general meeting of the scheme at Drobo, said the scheme had targeted to register at least 55 per cent of the population in the district this year, in line with the national target of 60 per cent registration.

"The scheme will do all it can to increase its membership from 41,475 to 49,770, which will in a way increase the subvention from the National health Insurance Fund to at least 1,835,060,034 cedis per quarter", he said.

He noted that among the expenditure incurred by the scheme last year, healthcare bills and claims attracted more than four billion cedis and this was likely to increase this year if the abuse of the system continued.

Mr Dapaah said efforts were being made to educate clients on the effect of the abuse of the system to help reduce the budgeted healthcare bill for this year.

The scheme's future challenges include adverse selection in which some household and family heads deliberately register only the sick amongst them, as well as household heads adding their own children/ wards to those of their relatives and or friends to be registered, he said.

The board chairman however added that the scheme was able to minimize the practice during the year under review. Mr Dapaah said another area of constraint was the people living in unhygienic conditions and feigning sickness and accessing healthcare only to hand over the medications to other non-insured sick relatives. "The rational behind the exclusion list and the NHI Drug List are also matters of concern to most clients and even the general public", the board chairman noted and appealed for a review of the Act. He said the scheme was using the local media in an educational and sensitisation campaign and was collaborating with health and environmental health staff, the district assembly and the unit committees to help improve environmental sanitation.

On future enrolment, Mr. Dapaah said the scheme "intends to engage in school pupil/students registration" and that an exercise would be mounted to register all schoolchildren in the district. "This will help beef up the enrolment of the district in line with the national target of 60 per cent by the close of the year and also make sure that more children and the vulnerable are covered", he added. Mr Francis Amponsah, chairman of the general assembly, noted that the scheme's sterling performance was a big challenge and stressed the need for management to redouble efforts to sustain it.

He expressed regret that the district's HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 11.2 per cent was the highest in Brong Ahafo and called on all to help reverse the situation, noting that an attitudinal change among the people would help to lure more members to join the scheme.