Bawku (U/E), Oct. 13, GNA - The ban on the use of motorbikes in the Bawku Municipality and its environs is hampering the movement of health personnel, especially those working with the Municipal Mutual Health Insurance Scheme.

Field workers find it difficult to access most communities, to register people for the Scheme. Consequently, about 343,151 potential clients in the Municipality and the Garu-Tempane District in the Upper East Region have not been registered for the Scheme.

Mr. Mahamadu Akugri, Municipal Manager of the Scheme, said these at a sensitisation durbar at Kulungungu near Bawku on Tuesday. He said that despite these difficulties, the Scheme had collected 139,655.90 Ghana cedis as premium and 5,314,378.23 Ghana cedis for re-insurance from January to September this year. Mr. Akugri said that the Scheme had registered about 271,273 new members monthly and renewed or reactivated about 19,606 registrations. He advised the people to patronize the Scheme since Government established it to provide quality and affordable health care for all Ghanaians irrespective of their sex, ethnic background or political affiliation.

Mr. Akugri asked the people to embrace the Government's one-time premium policy of the Scheme.

He said that Government was taking steps to stop dual registration, impersonation and late renewal of identity cards that were affecting the Scheme.

Mr. Akugri said that Government had introduced a new policy for pregnant women, to enable them to access antenatal health care free of charge, and appealed to prospective beneficiaries to register with the Scheme and obtain instant identity cards.

He advised people who had registered with the Scheme but were yet to be issued with identity cards, to file complaints for temporary cards.

Mr. Issifu Bawure, a worker at the Kulungungu Health Centre, called on Government to decentralize payments to health service providers.