Cape Coast, Feb. 20, GNA - Mr Kojo Anaisie Yarquah, Presiding Member of the Cape Coast Municipal Assembly (CCMA) on Thursday stated that the Assembly would do all within its capabilities to ensure the success of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the municipality.

He announced that last year the Assembly gave 10 million cedis and an office to commence business to the Mutual Health Insurance Scheme (MHIS), a body set up in Cape Coast to register beneficiaries of the NHIS.

Mr Yarquah was speaking at a forum on the NHIS, organised by the National Council On Women and Development (NCWD) for women leaders in the municipality.

The PM echoed calls on Ghanaians to refrain from politicising the scheme, since this would be detrimental to the health needs of the ordinary Ghanaian and stressed that the introduction of the scheme was necessitated by the inability of the poor who constitute the bulk of the population to patronise the cash and carry system.

Mr Yarquah urged all, especially those who could not seek medical care "because of the atrocious cash and carry system", to register with the scheme.

Mr Thomas Tawiah, Cape Coast Hospital Administrator told the women that the scheme would among other thing cater for the treatment of heart diseases, diabetes and AIDS.

During an open forum, he explained that a registered member of the MHIS would be required to contribute six thousand cedis a month for a period of three months before that person could qualify as a beneficiary of the scheme.

In a welcoming address, Madam Monica Fogah, focal person of the NCWD, said the forum was organised because women constituted the majority and it was imperative to be abreast with all national issues and urged the participants to share the knowledge they had acquired with their counterparts.