Tamale, Jan. 11, GNA - The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), has denied media reports that health service providers in the East Gonja District, are turning away NHIS card holders because of debts owed them by the scheme. Mr. Kasim Abdulai, District Manager of the NHIS said in a rejoinder copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Tamale that "only clients from the Makango clinic were turned away".

Mr. Abdulai said NHIS card holders in Makango were turned away by service providers because the scheme owed them since September 2009. He said the number of people who bear NHIS ID cards in the area are 40,000 and not 400,000 as reported earlier. Mrs. Elizabeth Owusu Sekyere Midwifery Officer in charge of the Makango clinic told the GNA that some of the patients that were turned away were either bearing expired ID cards or reported without photocopy of their particulars.

She explained that because of the high illiteracy level in the area some of the people do not know that their cards had expired. "I only told them to go and renew their cards but I never turned away clients with valid ID cards," she said. Mrs. Owusu Sekyere appealed to the management of the scheme to give adequate education to clients to know how to renew their ID cards.