Wa, May 4, GNA - The Wa Municipal Health Insurance Scheme registered 73,937 clients, representing 66 percent of the population of 112,050 of the municipality As at the end of December 2007. These include formal sector workers, the informal sector, children under 18 years, Social Security and National Trust Fund (SSNIT) pensioners and those aged 70 years and above as well as the core poor and had been issued with Identify Cards.

Mr. Abdul-Rahman Alhassan, Wa Municipal Health Insurance Scheme Manager, said this at the fourth annual general assembly meeting of the delegates of Community Health Insurance Committee in the Wa Municipal Health Insurance Scheme in Wa on Saturday. He said the scheme had been able to collect 94,969.62 Ghana cedis as premiums in 2007 from adults in the informal sector while it had also provided 64,563 number of identify cards for members due to benefit from the Scheme.

Mr Alhassan said 97,573 clients, representing 248 per cent, accessed healthcare in the municipality in 2007 and the bill settled in their favour stood at 7,163419074.75 old cedis. He said despite the significant improvement in the membership drive, a number of challenges remained to be examined in order to enhance the sustainability of the scheme.

He mentioned that majority of the current membership of the scheme were the non-premium paying card bearing members. For instance out of 64,563 cards issued as at the end of December last year, 46,597 went to the exempt group as compared to 17,966 for contributors from the informal sector.

Mr. Alhassan said one dominant challenge has been how to improve coverage of the informal sector and appealed to all stakeholders to join hands to enable the scheme to effectively cover that sector. He said inadequate logistics such as computers, cameras, printers, bicycles and motorcycles as well as staff were undermining the effective operations of the scheme. He said escalation of tariffs, non compliance with the drug list, failure to indicate diagnosis and reluctance of registered members to renew their membership at the stipulated times were also a source of worry. 04 May 08